Through the Ages, to New Lands
by Harvest-Mooniac
Summary: Scientist Orson travels forward through time, past the Great Mushroom Wars and meets Finn and the Gang three years from where they currently are. Told from OC perspective as he recounts it to his grandchildren Warning! I will ship Finn and FP. Characters appearing will be: Finn, Jake, Rainicorn, Corndogs, Marceline and Ice King. No genderbents will appear sadly.
1. Prologue

Authors Note:_ I acknowledge and apologize for the fact that this chapter has nothing to do with Adventure Time except for a few references to the land of Ooo below. I'll be working on Chapter 1 after submitting this, and I hope everyone enjoys it. Please be sure to review and give me any feedback to let me know how I'm doing, it's really important to me and it'll help keep me motivated to keep publishing chapters. Special thanks goes to SCIK1012 as a source of inspiration with her awesome stories. everyone should REALLY go check them out._

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Prologue

"C'mon Grandpa, we're not even tired yet!" Shouted a small brown haired boy.

"Yeah," said another voice from another small boy, this one with bright red hair and pale skin. "It's only 8!" Both children were in flannel full body pajamas, the brown haired boy in red and green while the ginger was in full green.

"Can we please stay up a little longer, pretty please?" The brown haired boy begged, dropping to his knees.

"Now now kids, your parents were very clear on this," chuckled their Grandpa, "Bedtime for Finn and Jake is 8PM. And Finn, you're almost twelve now, should you really be begging? Get up and have some dignity!" Orson chided playfully.

"Yes Grandpa." Finn sighed, and stood up. As rambunctious as the pair was, they almost always obeyed Orson. He was a tall and lean man. Almost always sharply dressed, Orson had a tendency to command authority from those around him. His horn-rimmed glasses and well maintained head of silver hair gave him a sort of sage look too.

"Good. Now brush your teeth you two, and be off to bed. Grandpa is old, and needs to take some time to relax in his study." He knelt down and rustled the boys' hair. He didn't exactly consider seventy-two old, but reminding his grandchildren of the age gap helped in convincing them to behave. Suddenly, Jakes face lit up as if he'd discovered the secret of life.

"But Grandpa," exclaimed Jake, "You haven't told us a story today!" Any time Finn & Jake stayed overnight with Grandpa Orson, he'd tell them a story at some point in the day. Since Orson could hardly say no to five more minutes past bedtime, the story from Grandpa was practically a family rule.

Orson facepalmed and forced a smile. He had somehow forgotten to prepare a story. Now they're going to sleep would never happen.

"Aren't you kids getting too old for Grandpa's stories?" He asked, hoping against all odds his grandchildren's tastes would change in the next ten seconds. Both heads shook no in unison. Of course they did.

"We'll never be too old for one of your stories Grandpa!" Exclaimed Jake, bouncing excitedly up and down. Despite the fact that this meant he'd be in deep trouble with his son-in-law and daughter when they came to collect their still-sleepy children, Orson couldn't help but feel happy that his grandchildren still loved to hear Grandpa spin a yarn.

Orson chuckled, saying "Okay, okay. You two brush your teeth and crawl into bed. I'll be in shortly to tell you guys a story." He said all this with an air of defeat.

The two boys jumped, hugged their Grandpa, and ran off to the bathroom. "And I better not find toothpaste everywhere," He shouted after them, "I just cleaned up the mess from last time!"

Orson sighed. He had about five minutes to think of a story to tell them. Give or take two minutes depending on how much toothpaste was currently being flung carelessly around. As he was scanning a nearby bookshelf for a book of stories he could read from, or even a short story they'd be able to understand, a memory came up on him. A memory that absolutely refused to go away, and came back stronger than ever each time it became story time with Finn and Jake. But just like every time this memory came up, another followed it.

The second memory, a voice of a friend he knew long ago. A voice that embodied the very essence of kindness and sweetness, reminding him of a promise made a long time ago. "Before you go, you need to promise us one thing Orson. You can't tell ANYONE about what you saw in here or on your way here. No matter who or what they are or may be, you can't let this slip to anyone. Letting people know about this encounter could endanger the future and alter the course of time itself!"

"Grandpa! We're ready now!" Two voices came in tandem from the back bedroom. It didn't matter if he told this story right? After all, it's not like telling one little memory to two kids would destroy the world. Besides, they'll just think it's a work of pure fiction. He made his way over to the back bedroom smiling. He was going to enjoy almost every part of this memory.

The bedroom was a fairly old one. The house itself was at least ten years old, and the bedrooms had something of a simple layout. White wallpaper with grey flower designs, two brass beds separated by an oak nightstand, and on top of that was a small white lamp with a beige lampshade. The whole room practically screamed "GERIATRIC!" In the corner opposite the base of the beds and door way was a large leather armchair that Orson used to take on the role of story-teller.

"What's today's story Grandpa?" Finn asked beaming from ear to ear. Orson sat in the chair pretending to look pensive. He knew all the details already, but wanted to make it look like he was making it all up off the fly.

"How about Grandpa tells you a personal story from his life?" The boys looked at each other, usually his stories were about space aces and magic knights, but he never offered to tell them a story about his life before. They both nodded and then hunkered down in their beds with great anticipation.

"All right then, I don't suppose you kids would know this. But I knew royalty at one point in my life." Both boys looked at Orson in amazement, not many after all got to meet royals.

"Really Grandpa? Where were they from? What'd they look like? Did they have a lot of money? How'd you meet them?" Jake, being the curious nine year old he was, let loose the barrage of questions mercilessly.

"I'll answer in due time child," he chuckled "but I can tell you now. They weren't from any map you'd find right now. They live, in a land called 'Ooo', and it exists waaaaaaay in the future!" He saw Finn roll his eyes.

"Grandpa, how could you know anyone in the future? And what kind of name is 'Ooo'?" Finn asked, obviously doubting the validity of his Grandpa's tale.

"It's a great story my boy," he chuckled, "In my opinion at least. As for why the land was called Ooo, I can't say. No one ever explained it to me." He leaned back in his chair and sighed, "You see boys, it all started while I was working in a lab out in the Mojave Desert…"

_To be continued_


	2. How it all started

_Author's Note: I apologize in advance for particularly bad grammar that may exist in this chapter. I also apologize for, once again, not having much of anything to do with AT in this chapter. I swear, more will be happening with the cast and world after this chapter. Most of this was written pretty late at night, something which I'm positive I should stop doing for the sake of my brain/sanity. _

_Another note, I'd like to give a shoutout to Unknown Awesomeness for being the first to follow this story. I appreciate it very much, and hope you (as well as anyone else interested in this story) continue to derive entertainment from my story.  
_

_Also, for anyone looking for a good fanfiction that's not this one, check out "Tales of the Alternate Universe" by SCIK1012, or any of her fanfics. They're really good, and full of that sweet sweet Flinn shipping that fills even the coldest of hearts with the warm fuzzies.  
_

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In a remote portion of the Mojave Desert, there exists a US military base dedicated to research into supernatural phenomenon. It's a small base, nowhere near the size of other bases like Fort Bragg or Camp Bowie. It's just three medium sized gray stone buildings surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire and two gates with small booths. The remote location meant it was capable of affording lower security than a normal base, but that didn't change the fact that there were always guards patrolling with high caliber machine guns through the buildings and around the perimeter. After all, the contents of these three buildings could cause empires to rise from nothing, and reduce them to ashes all at the same time (if anyone could figure out how to use the damn things). In building A, in the north-eastern most corner of the base, was a large garage used as a sort of lab in which scientists and engineers worked together to crack the mysteries of supposedly magical artifacts or create devices to bend reality to their whim. However, due to the budgets for paranormal/supernatural research being less than adequate, there is currently exactly one scientist/engineer duo working in said garage.

Orson Goulding and Hans Keller, two men interested in science and the paranormal to a point of near obsession, are currently the ones holding the right to work in the lab.

Orson, a young man at age 26, was currently working over a small metal puzzle cube on a steel rolling table. Strands of brown hair falling over his lab goggles, he leaned over the cube with a small soldering iron which was spraying his white lab coat with bright orange sparks. After about 15 minutes of trying to break the shell, he sets down the iron and lifts his goggles.

"Well Keller," he says while taking a drink from a clear plastic water bottle "After 1 hour of messing around with this damn thing, it appears that we've accomplished jack shit in terms of figuring out what it does." The puzzle cube sat on the cart with a few scorch marks, but managing to retain its gleam. The puzzle box itself is a cube made of an unidentifiable metal, and featured all sorts of weirdly designed pieces of metal holding it together through several holes in the side. Some were spiral shaped, others jutted out at weird angles, and some were completely straight. However, none of them were removable by simply tugging them straight out.

"That's the last thing we have to examine for today right? Finally, we can continue working on 'it'." Keller said excitedly, practically jumping up from his seat in a corner with a black monolith of a computer. Keller, a good friend of Orson, was a large man. Wearing a Black Sabbath t-shirt and relaxed fit jeans with a set of prescription boxed glasses he was the epitome of nerdiness. Pulling his shoulder length blonde hair back, fixing it into a ponytail, he went over to a large object covered by a white sheet.

Pulling off the sheet revealed a beaten and battered space capsule. It was modified to have a glass pane, in the front like a viewing screen, and inside was a single seat with computer module in front of it. Very much a work in progress, this product of a called in favor and 2 years of labor was supposed to be a time machine.

"What's next man?" Asked Orson as he pulled out a box of various electronic components.

"Well," Keller pulled a clipboard off a shelf and dusted it off, "We still need to do a bunch of calculations on how to get it to accelerate past the speed of light, figure out how to control paradoxes, and find some way to get it to not collapse under all the stress time travel is bound to cause, but under the heading of 'simple chores' is to replace some of the paneling that came loose when this beauty crash landed."

"Sorry boys" came a feminine voice, "but you've got one more assignment for today." A young blonde woman of about 22 came into the lab from a side door and set down a box of nails on the cart next to the puzzle cube. She wore a blue blouse with a black skirt and white lab coat. "These came from some psycho's house in California. He kept claiming when the police arrested him that the nails were magic."

"Geez Beth, what are we, some kind of joke?" Orson questioned, taking another swig of his water bottle. "Some crazy claims his nails are magic and they send it to us? I know it's rare for us to find something special about half the crap sent to us, but it doesn't change the fact that Keller and I here are highly educated individuals."

Beth rolled her eyes. "Normally, we'd just chuck these. But the guy had some pretty advanced tech in his house. Some of the tech they found was years ahead of what we currently have, and this guy was no genius. All items found that were advanced past our current time were found to have one of these nails embedded in them, so experimenting shouldn't be too hard. Just find something and hammer it in. Record what happens and then get to work on figuring out why it happened." Beth turned and left.

"Yes Ma'am!" Keller stood straight and saluted jokingly. "So Orson, ol' buddy ol' pal, what do you wanna nail first?" Keller picked up the box of nails and tossed it from one hand to the other.

"Well, aside from Beth," Orson snickered while raising his eyebrow suggestively, "let's try using it on the good ol' time capsule. Worst case scenario, we take the beaten up impossibility and make it an impossibility with a nail in it." He took the box from Keller, as well as a hammer from a tray on the cart and walked over to the Time Machine. Placing the nail in an empty screw slot, he slammed it repeatedly until the nail fit firmly into the empty slot and stood back pretending to admire his handiwork. "Here, hand me the cd with the Time machine software and let's test this baby out!" He jumped into the seat in the capsule and buckled up.

Keller put the CD into a slot at the base of the console, and the screen booted up with an adjustable wheel for setting the date. In the bottom corner of the screen was a green button to confirm. Keller then set up a small camcorder across from the pod and began to record. "Alright Orson, How's it feel to be the second Orson to travel through time?"

"Feels good bro!"

"Alright man, set the mofo to 1000 years into the future, and come back with a better one than this hunk of junk!" Keller gave the Star Trek salute and laughed. Orson touched the screen, setting the coordinates in time and hit the green button. What happened next shocked everyone, as the doors on the pod slammed shut

Next came the sound of engines firing up, despite the fact that the fuel lines had been severed to prevent accidental fires or explosions. Keller knocked over the camera and started pounding on the glass to try and break through to his friend. Whatever the nail did, it had completely overhauled their scrap heap of a time machine into something entirely new. Orson sat paralyzed with fear, white as a sheet as he watched his friend try desperately to break through. This lasted only a few minutes though, as the engines exploded beneath him and he shot through the roof of the garage. Everything below him rapidly shrank, and only a few seconds later did he find himself floating in outer space above where he once was.

When everything finally stopped moving, when he was in the dead silence of space, he looked at the console and saw it was now displaying the current date. Orson wondered why it was doing this, until he saw the days fly by like milliseconds on the console. Each minute he perceived was now flying away was another 100 years.

Tick

The earth turns on

Tick

Spires rise up, cities and grandeur rise and fall each day.

Tick

The world is coated in water now, cities become islands.

Tick

Now the opposite happens, and the world becomes a deserted wasteland

Tick

The earth looks like it was before this damn machine flew up into space, a comforting feeling settles in for some reason.

Tick

600 years, a mushroom cloud rises from a portion of earth, and the cloud produced shrouds it for 50 years. At the final part of the century, the impact zone of the bomb lifts off and floats away into space

Tick

The world is gray, cold, and dead looking. This was a terrible idea, even if it was only in jest.

Tick

Orson thought the shock of seeing the world kill itself had made him unstable, for he saw a giant golden owl fly around the world and restore color to it.

Tick

Now instead of just green and blue, the world was covered in a mesh of colors. Blue, pink, green, all spread over the world. It was now, that the screen stopped accelerating time, and Orson settled into place 1000 years in the future. Now the time machine lurched, and he began to descend

The time machine fell, further and further down. And as it fell, the capsule began to catch fire while entering the atmosphere. The interior somehow managed to avoid heating up, but the viewing pane was now scorched completely black. This didn't make much difference though, as Orson had his eyes shut tight as he could possibly shut them anyways. The fall lasted for all of 20 seconds, and then the impact came. Somehow, Orson managed to avoid getting seriously injured, a small miracle considering his current situation.

As he was getting his bearings, Orson heard something through a crack in the hull of the Time Capsule. A female, in a soft and distraught voice, "It destroyed our picnic…"

Orson didn't need to press his ear against the crack to hear the next part, "IT DESTROYED OUR PICNIC! ARRRRRRRGGGHHH! I'LL INCINERATE WHATEVER THE HECK THAT THING IS!" Orson pressed back against the opposite wall just in time to avoid a straight line of flames bursting through crack, blasting the capsule back against something hard enough to stop the capsule propelled by a blast of some sort. The crack grew wider, and sunlight poured in from it.

"Flame Princess! Sweetheart! Calm down, I don't think that thing's even from here!" Came the distressed voice of a young male.

"Yeah," came an older and much gravellier voice "This is just some space junk from before the Mushroom War. It falls out of the sky occasionally, usually some pretty cool stuff inside. And Skeletons!"

"C'mon bro!" shouted the male voice, "Let's pop it open and see what's inside!" Suddenly, two slender yellow arms came in and latched onto the opposite sides of the crack. They suddenly enlarged, and ripped the shell open.

Orson, blinded by the sudden sunlight was able to make out the shapes of a dog, a horse, a man and a woman before everything went completely blurry. Someone spoke in Korean, followed by the gravelly voice muttering something.

"Oh glob, is that what I think it is?" came the young male's voice. Orson was not having a good day by any stretch of the word.


	3. One Near Death Experience Later

_Authors Note: So these chapters seem to be getting longer and longer. This one is a few hundred words longer than the last one and shows up as five pages in Microsoft Word. Not sure when it gets to the point of being too long though :/ I thought about breaking this one up into a 2 parter, but that would be really weird this early on in the story. _

_Hey kids, what time is it? PLUG TIME! If there's anyone here who's reading this that hasn't read Burning Promises__  
_ _should really read those first. They're really excellent stories, especially considering the author is only 13. Lone Dark Knight has a very enjoyable writing style, and his stories have that good ol' fashion Drama everybody loves. Drama Booooooooomb. __also, this chapter was written while repeatedly listening to gr8 story by SuG, so I would recommend reading it while listening to that as well.  
_

_Finally, thank you to everyone who has been following the story. It's already reached over 100 views, which is a first for any of my stories. I hope everyone that reads this story has as much fun reading it as I did writing it.  
_

_Adventure Time is copyrighted property of Frederator Studios and the amazing brainchild of Pendelton Ward. Please support the source material and buy Season 4 on DVD as soon as it hits the shelves.  
_

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Orson's eyes began adjusting to the light that was pouring into them. Maybe once his vision cleared, things would start to make more sense. Maybe this was all a dream he had while falling asleep at the desk in his study, the light was just the desk lamp and the strange figures he'd thought he'd seen were residual light rays bouncing around. Yeah, now was the time to stand up and put the nightmarish fever dream behind him. Work was probably in a few hours. He stood up, and rubbed his eyes.

Things did NOT get better.

Now that he could see clearly, Orson saw he was standing in the middle of a clearing amidst a forest of Cotton Candy trees and yellow colored grass. Ahead of him were the smoldering remains of what appeared to be a wooden table, as well as a motley crew of what could best be described as a hallucination no amount of narcotics could ever explain away.

Gathered around him in a semi-circle of shocked and concerned expressions, was an elongated unicorn with blonde hair and what appeared to be a rainbow for a body. Next to that, was a yellow bulldog standing on two legs, scratching its chin and frowning. To the dog's right, was a young man dressed in a blue shirt and pants with some form of ridiculous looking bear hat on his head; and then next to that was a young woman, glaring at him furiously with fireballs floating above her hands, and hair that seemed to be part of a large fire resting on her head. All of them were muttering, as a group of multi-colored Bulldog/Dachshunds ran around their legs excitedly shouting too many things to be understood properly. Finally, the young man spoke up.

"Jake," the man in the hat began with a shaky voice, "This doesn't look like normal old space junk anymore. What's going on here?" He reached for a red handle extending from his green satchel, eyes focused intently on me. Between him and the flaming girl, Orson decided not moving a muscle would be the best possible thing right now.

"I dunno man," Replied the yellow dog, "Usually it's just dead guys and artifacts in these things. But this guy doesn't look dead." He pointed at him, and then suddenly a finger on his paw stretched 10 ft and poked Orson in the cheek causing him to flinch. "Yup, definitely not dead. Yo' man! Do you speak common?" Jake asked Orson, staring intently as if he was some kind of new animal.

Before Orson could respond, the burning girl spoke up "He destroyed our family picnic, endangered Jakes kids, and junked up the spot Princess Bubblegum provided us with… HE MUST PAY!" Her head morphed into a demonic looking fire while bolts of pure energy surged from her arms.

"FP, don't sweat it sweetheart!" Came the man in the hat not a moment too soon, he sounded panicked, which meant they probably didn't want to kill him. Or at least all but one didn't want to. "I'm sure this guy didn't mean to do any of that, and no one was hurt! Please, don't waste this guy, for me?" He wrapped his arms around the fiery demonic girl and looked at her with wide shining eyes. She reverted back to normal in a few seconds and wrapped her arms around the man in return.

"Ok honey, I won't kill him for you. Sorry I lost it there," she said, blushing a bit in embarrassment, "It's just all that time and effort you and Jake put into making this happen, and all the food you guys made…" She looked over to the still smoldering remains with a disappointed frown.

"핀은, 화염 공주님, 제이크, 그건 저거나이 사람의 모양을해서 ... 인간?" Asked the rainbow unicorn. In Korean. Orson was pretty sure at this point that he was probably nuts, although he felt normal aside from a pounding headache.

"Lady's right guys, this guy DOES look human. But how could he live in a piece of space junk? Especially one that was in space until recently?" Jake placed his thumb and index finger under his chin while squinting. "Hmmmm, hey buddy! Who and what are you!" Jake barked at Orson.

There was one of two things he could do now. Run, and possibly be incinerated by the girl with the ability to conjure flames; or he could answer the question and accept whatever consequences being human might entail. The young man appeared human, so the second option was probably the safest.

"My name's Orson," He began with some fear penetrating his voice, "and yes, I am a human." His confirmation of his humanity elicited a group gasp from everyone in the semicircle around him.

"But… Humans haven't been around since before the Great Mushroom War!" Finn shouted with a mixture of confusion and panic tainting his voice. "Aside from me and Susan, and great Glob I'm not even sure how we're here, there aren't any other humans on Earth! Grod, I'm so confused…" Finn sat on the grass clutching his head. Flame Princess frowned and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder

"Ok, so if he's human why was he in a piece of space junk and NOT a skeleton? And how'd he survive all those years in this cramped thing?" Questioned Jake, stepping forward to get a better look at the wreckage. "What if he's an alien pretending to be human just to mess with us?"

Orson didn't like being approached by the dog and backed up a little, "I swear, I'll sound nuts when I do this, but I can explain! I'm just a scientist, and I was working with my friend on some box nails! But… they weren't normal nails, or something. We used one on our time machine and… and…" Orson searched for an explanation as to what the damn nail could've possibly done but was drawing blanks "It kinda… upgraded it to fully functioning. I was shot up into space, and sat there watching time accelerate past me for over 1000 years… And then I just fell. I have no clue what happened, how it happened, or whatever, but I swear I'm human!" Orson had a feeling that an alien pretending to be human to mess with this particular group would be in massive danger of being vaporized, or at least severely beaten.

"Ok then, if you're telling the truth," said Finn, standing up and starting to sound more intrigued, "do you have anything else with you from before the Great Mushroom wars?"

Orson thought for a moment and stepped out of the wreckage, looking at the split open shell. There was a storage space in the back which he and Keller had loaded with 'Time Travel survivors kits', but the storage space was currently being crushed under the rest of the craft. Not to mention, the whole crash and falling from orbit probably demolished anything inside. "Well, there's a storage space on the other end, but I'm not sure if there's anything left…"

"Let's check it out then!" Jake grew larger, causing Orson to step back and stumble over a piece of burnt picnic table. Finn got on the other side, and both lifted up the pod while flipping it and set it back down. As they flipped it, some panels came loose and flew off the shuttle like shingles off a house in a storm. Bending down, Orson picked up two halves of a long black nail that were lying on top of a scorched panel that landed near him and pocketed them. Never know when you might need something like that again.

Orson stood in amazement for a moment, a young man only a few years below him probably and a large yellow dog just lifted a spacecraft and then flipped it with enough force to fling some loose panels off it. Whatever was in the water here, he'd have to remember to drink plenty of it. After a few seconds of being stunned, he collected himself and looked for the handle, eventually finding it beneath a good amount of scorch marks and twisted metal. Pulling up on it left Orson once again stupefied. The goddamn nail had even upgraded the storage space, a simple hollow made with the same metal as the rest of the spacecraft was now a heavily padded and well lit. Inside, were two bags: A green duffel bag with a tag labeled 'Orson' on it, and a sky blue hiking backpack with "Keller" stitched on one of the straps.

Pulling both bags out; he decided to open his bag first. First thing he did was sleight-of-hand a small snub-nose silver Magnum revolver into his lab coat pocket. If they somehow knew what this relic was, the last thing he wanted to be seen as was aggressive. Following that, he turned it upside down and dumped the duffel bags contents on the ground. Not much but a bunch of canned foods, and an emergency medical kit. "Here," he said lifting the cans of preserved Green Beans, "Check the dates on these cans. The expiration should be a few centuries old, and the food inside should still be good. That would prove I'm a time traveler right?"

Finn and Jake cautiously picked up some of the cans and inspected them. Sure enough, the expiration dates on all the cans were from centuries ago. Jake molded his paw into a can opener shape and pried open a can of Spam. The pink, chunky cube inside looked healthy enough, although it's hard to tell when it has been processed to the point of just barely being edible. Jake then put his nose to the can and inhaled deeply. "It's good… I think…" He said, wondering if what was inside the can could even constitute food.

Finn came over and traded cans with the yellow dog, eating some of the Spam while Jake pried open a can of tuna. "It tastes like… ham?" Finn said with some uncertainty. Orson didn't blame the guy, no one who has ever encountered spam before could ever be prepared for cubed pig. "Well, I guess he's telling the truth. But what was that you said about a nail messing with your Time Machine before?" Finn was continuing to eat the Spam, and Orson began feeling sorry for accidentally destroying this guy's picnic if he was hungry enough to keep eating.

"I worked in a lab back in my time," Orson said with some relief. He was sure he was safe now, and felt he could relax without the Flame Princess girl waiting for him to slip up in some way. "We studied the supernatural and paranormal, and recently got some box of nails a guy had claimed were magic. Me and my associate were just joking around when we put one into our pet project Time Machine, activated it, and then it just… started working, sorta… It definitely wasn't supposed to jettison me up into space, but I guess the nail worked with what it had. I'm still confused on a bunch of the details; I really just want to get back home."

Finn had a look of nostalgia on him, like Orson had drudged up a long forgotten yet fond memory. "This nail, I don't suppose you could show it to us? I mean, if you forgot where you put it, that's fine but I think I know what happened."

Orson reached into his pocket and pulled out the two, still gleaming halves of the nail, handing them to Finn "They fell out when you and the talking dog flipped the craft, in an amalgamation of screws and welded bars, this was the only nail. So it was kinda hard to miss."

Finns eyes widened, "Whoah, Shmow! Jake, put that junk down and look what this guy had on his Time Machine!"

Jakes head stretched away from his body while the rest of him worked at the tuna can. "Dude, is that what I think it is!"

"Aw yeah man, this is a magic nail! This guy had one in his Time Machine, that's what allowed it to work!" Finn had an excited look on his face. "It's a shame it broke in the crash though, these things are so useful!"

Orson stood and composed himself. "Is it possible to reuse one? If we get it repaired, do you think that I could use it to get back home?" He had a good amount of enthusiasm in his voice. Maybe, just maybe, if he found something else to use as a time machine he could use the magic nail to get home to his own time!

"Not that I'm aware of," replied Finn, looking over the two halves, "I used to have three more of these four years ago, but I used the last of them fireproofing the tree house." Everyone couldn't help but notice that it got noticeably brighter and warmer from Flame Princess's direction. "Sorry we can't be of more help, but I do know one person who's smart enough to figure this sort of thing out. And sorry about the way we acted earlier; you just kind of took us all by surprise there." Finn looked a bit embarrassed and scratched his head. "Heck, I don't think we've even introduced ourselves. I'm Finn, and this is my brother Jake." Finn said, indicating the yellow bulldog.

"Yo." Jake waved a tuna covered paw at Orson.

"That's Lady Rainicorn over there, Jakes wife, and those little guys running around her feet are their pups Lilly, Syd, and Kim." Finn pointed to the rainbow colored unicorn, and three multi-colored dachshunds.

"당신 시간의 여행자 만나서 반갑습니다." said all four of them, smiling and waving. Orson had a feeling he would never be able to adjust to Korean speaking, rainbow colored unicorns no matter how long he was around one.

"And this lovely lady right here," Finn said, smiling and walking over to the burning girl, who was now blushing and glowing even brighter, "Is my fiancée and girlfriend for a little over three years now, Flame Princess." He got down on one knee and kissed her hand like a knight. This caused her to glow even brighter and giggle. When Finn stood back up, he had minor burns on his hand and lips where he touched Flame Princess.

"It's nice to meet you, and sorry about trying to incinerate you earlier. Anger is something I'm trying to control, among other things." She looked over with concern and a bit of sadness at Finns burn marks, like she blamed herself for having a body made of fire. Finn took notice immediately and smiled to show he was ok.

"It's ok sweetheart, don't worry about me." Finn said with a reassuring tone to Flame Princess. She gave a weak smile in return, but that still had a good amount of concern behind it.

Orson stood up and dusted himself off. "My name's Orson and it's nice to meet you all. I apologize about my… entrance. It appears I wrecked any plans for a picnic you guys had." Orson followed the trail of scorched earth from where the pod landed after FP had blasted it to the still smoldering remains of a wooden picnic table.

"It's cool man!" Jake said with an optimistic tone and a mouth full of tuna. "We figured a monster or something might wreck things anyway, so we had a backup plan, right Finn?"

"Gob, I almost forgot!" Finn said laughingly while slapping his forehead. He took off his backpack and pulled out a checkered, fireproof picnic blanket along with several Tupperware containers of food. "Hey Orson, how about you join us for the picnic and then we'll take you to meet Bubblegum later. You must be hungry, am I right?"

Orson paused for a moment, he hadn't eaten since 7:00 AM one thousand years ago and it had to be at least midday now. He scooped up a few cans of sardines and set them amongst the other food containers. "This is the least I can do for setting you guys back on this whole picnic thing. It'd be my pleasure to join, thanks for inviting me after I nearly smashed all of you." He said jokingly.

Soon, the new picnic was set-up, and everyone had a plate of Jake's soul food. But something kept gnawing at the back of Orson's mind, something he kept trying to push down with no avail.


	4. Time Passes at the Picnic

_Authors Note: Posting of the story may reach a slow down for a little while. School is starting to pile a hefty workload on me and that comes before fanfictions I'm afraid :/ Not to say that I'm killing the story, it may just take longer than the once-a-week/bi-weekly way I've been posting. _

_On another note, I meant for this chapter to be longer, but it was approaching 5 pages in Microsoft Word pretty fast. I'm not sure what constitutes "too long" though, so I might be restricting myself arbitrarily. If someone could PM me or post a review with a recommended word count, I would be appreciative.  
_

_Finally, this is just a fluff chapter essentially to get into writing with a few different personalities at once. I appreciate all the views I'm getting (Recently hit 200, woo!), but it would be appreciated if you guys could leave a review.  
_

_Adventure Time is property of Frederator and the creation of Pendelton Ward. All Adventure Time characters are property of Frederator Studios.  
_

* * *

As time passed at the picnic blanket, Orson slowly began to relax. All around him, on the red white checkered blanket, was a good feeling. Even if all the people there were different species, he could see how this could be considered a family picnic (aside from the impromptu time traveler).

Finn and Flame Princess were sitting close together at the edge of the blanket; each had a plate of food, but hardly touched any of it. Why would either of them be eating anyways, they were too wrapped up in a quiet conversation of some sort. Constant eye contact, both of them were smiling at each other, one or both occasionally laughed, this was truly the anthropomorphized version of young love if Orson had ever seen it. Watching the young couple, it was hard for him not to smile.

Close by to them were Rainicorn, Jake, and their 3 pups. Jake and Rainicorn were presently engaged in a struggle that many of Orson's friends with small children had gone through, a struggle which no parent walked away from without taking a direct hit to their sanity: Convincing their kids that the green vegetables were actually good for them, and totally not poisonous.

"C'mon kids, if you eat your vegetables you'll grow up to be big and strong," Jake enlarged himself to the size of a small elephant, "like me!" Even magic couldn't persuade a child to eat his or her vegetables it seemed, as the corndogs just stuck their noses up at the small pile of collard greens each of them had in front of them. "Please kids? I swear they're good for you! Look, I'll even eat some!" Jake picked up a handful from the container and ate it, still nothing.

One of the pups, a long green one, ran over to Finn and put its head in his lap. "Uncle Finn! Daddy's trying to poison us with yucky vegetables!"

"Am not!" Came a response from a pouting Jake.

Finn smiled and laughed a little. "It's ok Syd. Jake would never poison any of you guys. Those vegetables are actually pretty good." Finn picked up his plate and looked at it for a minute. He had been too busy chatting with Flame Princess to notice that the vegetable in question was in fact a sloppy pile of leaves boiled to a liquid consistency, with odd red bits mixed in. "There IS no poison in this though, right Jake?"

"Dude!"

"Just kidding man… sorta." Finn took his fork and forced some in. Grimacing, he forces a smile, "See guys, not bad." Flame Princess couldn't help but laugh at Finn while he did this, watching Finn lie through his teeth seemed funny.

The puppies were now convinced that the vegetables were safe and possibly good, and were happily munching down. Flame Princess said something quiet enough for only Finn to hear, and the reaction made Orson wonder what on Earth she'd said.

Finn had turned a shade of red so bright he was almost redder than Flame Princess's hair, and fell over stunned with a loud WHUMP. Flame Princess landed a critical hit it seemed…

Jake looked over and poked Finn in the face repeatedly. "Finn bro? You okay man, you look kinda petrified." He frowned when he got no response and looked over at Flame princess, who was clutching her sides laughing uncontrollably. "Okay Flame Princess, what'd you do to Finn?"

"Oh, nothing," She replied casually, calming down and wiping a molten tear from her eye, "I just asked him if he was going to be this awesome with our kids."

Jake's face broke out into an enormous smile and looked down at his fallen brother. "Y'know bro, you didn't give the lady an actual answer."

Finn's face turned even redder, and steam began to rise up. Orson couldn't help but laugh out loud at this. Even though he was sitting awkwardly in the opposite corner from everyone else, eating a can of tuna and contemplating his current predicament, it was damn near impossible to stay negative with these people around.

Eventually, the picnic came to an end with everyone packing up. Orson stuffed any cans of unused food into his pack and made sure the medical kit was still inside. After making sure all his stuff was together, Orson stared at Keller's backpack for a while. The feeling he was pushing down rose stronger than before, but Orson managed to keep it down. Now was not the time to let it win.

The picnic packed up, everyone waved goodbye to Jake and Rainicorn as they made their way back to Rainicorn's house with pups in tow. After they left, Finn picked up his bag and turned to Flame Princess. "Go ahead back to the Tree House, I'll be right back after I introduce this guy to Peebles." He gave Flame Princess a hug, "It shouldn't take too long, but when you get back could you ask Beemo to prepare the couch for a guest? I have a feeling…" Flame Princess returned the hug and nodded. The two released and a slightly charred Finn smiled and waved goodbye. Just as Flame Princess was about leave, Finn grabbed her shoulder. "By the way, of course I will be. I'm always awesome!" Finn said with a doofy smile. It took Flame Princess a few seconds to realize what Finn was talking about, but when it finally it her she grew a bit brighter and blushed, mumbling "Good answer" before heading off to the Tree House.

As they walked, Finn filled Orson in on the Candy Kingdom. He told Orson about Bubblegum, about how everything was made of candy and how he shouldn't eat anything that seemed to be living there.

"So this Princess Bubblegum," Orson began staring at the continuing cotton candy foliage, "when you say she's the smartest person on the planet, how exactly do you know this?" Orson maintained some skepticism; he didn't want to get his hopes up on returning home only to be told there was nothing they could do.

"Well," chuckled Finn, "She created three sentient life forms, managed to restore herself from being thirteen to eighteen, and saved my buns on multiple occasions."

"She's… created multiple life forms? Do you mean like cloning?" Orson asked with some concern.

"Naw. Well, sorta I guess since they were made with candy matter and DNA. But she created 3 completely new creatures, one person and two candy sphinxes. But we try not to talk about them too often…" Finn frowned and looked at the ground as they walked "None of them ended too happily. Two of them almost ended up junking up the Candy Kingdom and the last one was a candy sphinx made in order to take care of the last one she made that tried to psionically rule over all. They're still locked in mental mortal combat to this day."

Orson was shaken a bit by this; creating sentient beings back in his time from nothing was considered a crime against humanity. It was messing in domains not meant to be tampered with, could have horrifying consequences, and could possibly lead to others getting hurt, if someone did try doing something like this, than it was usually in a dark lab with less-than-legally acquired funds. Here, it was apparently a known and accepted fact that a princess of all people had not only done it three times but also let her creations out and tried to let them rule the kingdom.

"So… she's a mad scientist?" Orson asked as tactfully as he could.

"Nah, she's not nuts," Finn replied casually, "just her creations."

Eventually, they reached the Candy Kingdom. Everything about the kingdom absolutely stunned Orson the moment he set foot inside its gate. The clashing sugary scents, the massive amounts of pink, it all came together as a sort of child's dream land.

"Yo, you okay man?"

Orson realized he was standing in the middle of the street with his jaw dropped and drooling slightly. Finn was waving a hand in front of his face.

"I-I'm fine. This is just a lot to take in for one day." Orson clutched his forehead. This entire time travel trauma was really starting to take its toll with a massive headache.

Finn nodded "We'll get you something when we reach the castle."

Walking down the sugary streets, Orson was glad he'd had something to eat before coming here; all the candy people, despite being moving and talking creatures, looked downright delicious. It took a surprising amount of willpower to the urge to grab a little marshmallow child and shove it in his mouth. Even if marshmallows were his favorite treat, the fact that it was playing jump rope and giggling like any normal child deterred his craving.

When they reached the castle, Orson couldn't help but stop and stare again. A large, ornate building made entirely of cake stood in front of him, gushing chocolate from various points in the sides. Large cake turrets rose from the ground around it and bent inwards at weird angles with giant ice cream cones for turrets. And all this was built around a gigantic cotton candy tree, with large hard candy ornaments adorning its massive boughs. It stirred both Orson's appetite and appreciation for art at the same time.

Entering inside, Finn led him down a stone staircase into a flagstone basement. It reminded him of the kind of place a villain would have in their castle as the dungeon, complete with torches just barely lighting the path way. They didn't have to venture far into the basement though, as the large wooden door to the Princess's lab was right by the staircase.

Pushing open the door, even with all that had happened that day, Orson could hardly believe his eyes.


	5. Welcome to Bubblegums Lab o' Fun!

_Author's Note: First of all, I would like to thank SCIK once again. She's a radical dame with amazing stories and I appreciate the plug she gave me on her profile. And I get massive warm fuzzies from her "Tales of the Alternate Universe" and other fanfics. I blame her for part of the reason as to why I don't usually do more than one chapter per week, as it's hard to write while hitting F5 on the Adventure Time page looking for updates. (All kidding aside, she's an awesome awesome awesome **AWESOME **person who deserves a slap on the back and pardons from Lemongrabs reconditioning chamber)._

_This chapter took awhile to write, but I'm pleased with the end result. I wasn't smiling like mad like I normally am when writing, and I'm pretty sure this is the sloppiest chapter I've written so far, but I promise that the next chapter will be better. Scout's honor. (I also thought of something earlier today that made me practically fall over laughing, I will be using this idea in a future chapter, I hope it evokes a similar response from all y'all reading)  
_

_Wanted to add Marceline to the mix, but I feel I kinda shoe horned it in here :/ I'll think of a better use for her later definitely though.  
_

_As always, Adventure Time belongs to Frederator and was created by Pendelton Ward. I own nothing cept' good ol' Orson.  
_

* * *

Princess Bubblegums lab was far more advanced in terms of technology than what Orson had in his and Kellers government provided garage. On the far wall was a counter stretching from one end of the room to the other, completely filled up with beakers and test tubes of various sizes filled with liquids of various bright neon colors. In the center of the room was an island stacked with papers and a keyboard that was displaying a holographic image above itself. Charts of various designs with weird and unfamiliar designs decked the pink brick walls, and a woman with long, pink hair sat huddled over a desk in the back corner.

Orson cautiously edged in, while Finn just strolled past the beakers without a care. Orson had never seen half the stuff in these bottles, he couldn't even think of what any these weirdly colored concoctions could possibly be. He jumped back when one started to fizz near him.

"Hey Princess!" Finn shouted from across the lab, causing Princess Bubblegum to snap out of her work, and quickly snap her head around.

"Finn!" She quickly scrambled to collect the papers she was working on and shoved them all into slot on the desk. "What're you doing here? I thought you, Jake, Rainicorn, and Flame Princess were having a picnic today!" She looked frazzled, like she hadn't slept in days. Orson began to question Princess Bubblegum's sanity more and more.

"Well, that's kinda what I'm here to talk to you about Princess. We were about to have the picnic at that spot you showed us, when all of a sudden, a piece of space junk fell and smashed the table to pieces. Inside that, we found this guy." Finn pointed, indicating Orson standing paranoid near the entrance.

"Finn, is that what I think it is…" Bubblegum's eyes widened in shock and scientific curiosity.

"Yup, he's a human. He used a magic nail on a time machine or something and the nail made it work. The only problem is that the time machine kinda crash landed on our picnic and both the nail and the time machine were junked up in the wreckage." Finn pulled out the two pieces of the magic nail and handed them to Bubblegum. "He needs to get back to his own time, and I figured if anyone knew how to do that it would be you. Do you know anything about the Magic Nails or time travel Princess?"

Bubblegum walked over to Orson, looking him up and down. The Princess was wearing a white lab coat over a pink dress with puffed shoulders, and a crown with a blue-green gem rested on her head. Peering at Orson through a pair of large, round glasses, she seemed to be wondering if this was all real or if she'd fallen asleep at her desk while working. He knew the feeling…

Convinced that she was in fact awake, Bubblegum recomposed herself a little and extended a friendly pink hand to Orson. "Nice to meet you, I'm Princess Bubblegum. And you are?"

Orson shook her hand "My name is Orson; sorry this meeting couldn't occur under better circumstance." He looked awkwardly around the lab, still trying to understand his surroundings at least a tiny bit better.

"Well, it couldn't be helped I assume. Come over here, and tell me everything that happened in detail and we'll see what we can do." Bubblegum led him over to her desk in the back, and sat him down in an extra chair while he recounted his story to her. He couldn't believe it, and it gave him something of a glimmer of hope, but she was treating this sort of like a normal doctor would if a patient came in for a check-up. As he recounted his tale, she began to scratch down notes on a nearby clipboard; it amazed him how blank her face was as he told her everything that happened. Did the nail really explain everything? His head began ringing with pain again.

"Hey Princess," Finn shouted from the doorway, "FP's waiting for me at home, I gotta go. Thanks again for the spot, I'll make sure to pay for the table by the way. And Orson, if you need a place to stay then come over to the Tree House when you're done here. PB can give you directions."

"Wait Finn, I have something for you." PB reached into another slot on her desk and pulled out a small, clear pill bottle full of tiny blue pills. She walked over to Finn and handed them to him. "I developed these earlier; they were able to increase a lab rat's resistance to heat greatly, so theoretically this should ward off first degree burns at least. Sorry I can't do more before your big day, but I'll keep working at it. Science shall prevail!" She said all this with an exasperated smile. "As for the picnic table, don't worry about it. One's not all that expensive, the Candy Kingdom can cover it."

Finn looked at the bottle in near disbelief for a minute, and looked back at the princess wide eyed "Gee Bubblegum! Thanks!" Finn looked like he was about to explode with happiness. "By the way, that meditation technique you taught FP works! She can control her flames temporarily for 2-8 hours now, and she wanted me to thank you for her. It really has helped us out a lot, and we can't wait to see you at the Wedding." Finn did a slight bow and bolted out as PB waved goodbye. Afterwards, she returned to Orson and looked over the notes she had taken.

"Now, I can't make any promises here and I'm already up to my crown in work, but I'll try examining the nail to find out more about it. In the meantime though," PB's face broke out into a mile he knew all too well from Keller; it was the smile of a scientist who'd just stumbled across a brand new resource and wouldn't care if it was morally questionable to experiment on it. "Would you mind if I took a few tissue and blood samples from you for research? Finn's the only human left in Ooo, and I might never get an opportunity like this again."

Orson's head was still ringing with pain, so he only heard 'would you mind…' before everything else got shut out. "Yeah yeah, sure. But can I get something for this headache I'm having? It's getting to be a real pain." Bubblegum took a half empty vial of blue liquid and handed it to Orson

"Take just one sip, and your headache will clear right up and we can begin!" She smiled excitedly, and Orson did as she said. The pain was approaching head-splitting fast, now was not the time to question what she just handed him. An extremely sugary taste filled his mouth the moment the fluid entered, and then it was replaced with an extremely foul rotting candy after taste he swallowed. It seemed that even in a world where buildings could be made of candy, they couldn't get medicine of any kind to taste less terrible. The bright side was though; as soon as the medicine hit his stomach Orson's headache seemed to magically vanish. He resealed the bottle and handed it back to Princess Bubblegum.

He smiled, enjoying the fact his head was now able to take in everything and not hurt at the same time. However, his smile dissolved slowly when he realized Bubblegum was still staring at him with an excited smile that made his skin crawl. "So… what did I agree to again?"

Two hours later, Orson left the candy kingdom with a map of the grasslands leading to Finn's treehouse. His left arm was numb and covered in bandages, because the princess had spent the last two hours sticking it with various needles of all shapes and sizes to extract various pieces of him. Both of his bags were slung over his right shoulder, and he slowly made his way to the tree house, silently praying that when whatever medicines the Princess had given him to remove the pains of her experimentation wore off his arm wouldn't fall off. It was dark out now, and he had the feeling that someone was watching him.

"Wow, I still can't believe how much blood Bonnibel took from you, and I'm a vampire."

Scratch that, Orson knew he was being watched. Placing his hand on the snub nosed revolver in his coat pocket, he whipped around to see who was talking to him. Floating in the air was a teenage girl in a gray dress with gray striped stockings. Her long black hair flowed down behind her, and he could make out pointy ears in the darkness.

"Whoah there buddy, whatever you got in your pocket you can keep it there. I won't harm you… Probably" She chuckled and landed near him getting a closer look. "So you're from before the Great Mushroom Wars right? How'd you end up here?"

Orson backed away slowly, "Who're you, and how'd you know that?"

"I'm Marceline, and I saw you talking to Bonnibel. I was gonna prank her but I saw her busy jabbing you with all those tubes. Also, you look pretty human." She snickered at how defensive Orson was being. "Still haven't answered my question man."

"Freak accident, now if you'll excuse me I have somewhere to be. I don't generally feel great talking to strangers at night either." He didn't want to draw out interaction with her too much.

"You're no fun," Marceline pouted, "but before you go, mind if I ask you one more thing?"

"What would that be?" Orson took his hand off the revolver to readjust the strap on Keller's backpack.

"How much would you mind if I ATE YOUR SOUL!?" She morphed into a giant bat creature and couldn't stop laughing when the spot Orson previously occupied was now occupied by a dust cloud, Orson decided it would be a good idea to run the rest of the way to the Treehouse.


	6. Couch and Emotional Crashing

_Authors Note: First of all, I'd like to preface this chapter with a thank you to Some Donkus for pointing out a slip up I made in the calculating of the AT timeline. I can't really change it now, but I'll think of a good excuse for later if that's of any consolation to him/her. I'd also like to thank him/her for his/her support on the story, and I apologize for the delay in updating because this chapter is one of the longer ones (2, 884 words, the authors note likely to boost it up to 3k or close to it). _

_Secondly, I want to thank Mad Gambler-X for following the story! Every time I see a new review or follower, it makes my heart jump for joy and do a little dance. The doctors say the pills should control that eventually, but the only noticeable difference is that it's gone from tap dancing to salsa dancing (arguably worse).  
_

_Thirdly, I would like to proudly announce that between this chapter and my last chapter the number of views jumped from roughly 300 to 520.  
_

_Finally, I would like to say, "Wah wah wah, wah wah wahwahwah. WAH!"  
_

_PS: There are some things in this chapter which I will address in the next, didn't fix them here because I was already uncomfortable with the length.  
_

_Adventure Time is the sole property of Frederator Studios, and was created by Pendelton Ward (King of the nerds, god of the bearded).  
_

* * *

Orson's legs felt like they were about to fall off when he finally reached the tree house. He had run all the way from Candy Kingdom to the grasslands after his run in with Marceline, and each deep inhale of air stung his lungs. Nerds were not meant to run extreme distances, and Orson was no exception. Stopping in front of the tree fort he found his depth perception was moving in and out like someone was playing with an internal zoom feature on his eyeballs.

Looking up, he was greeted with the image of a grand Weeping Willow modified to act as shelter. In front of him was a shack, with corrugated steel roofing, which attached to the trunk. Between the branches, each of which was large enough to be its own tree, were bridges linking back to the main trunk of the tree. Windows peaked out from the foliage of each tree segment, and filled the night with a warm candlelight glow which gave the entire tree a nice welcoming quality.

Orson rang the doorbell on the bottom most entrance to the tree house, and in a matter of seconds, Finn was down to greet him. Finn was wearing a set of blue and white button down pajamas and matching night cap along with his standard bear hat. He began to wonder if Finn ever took off that hat for anything.

"Woah! Dude, you look like crud! Come inside, before you get even more junked up!" Finn exclaimed looking a bit worried. Between Bubblegum's extractions and the impromptu workout caused by Marceline, Orson thought he probably looked to Finn like he'd crawled out of a grave somewhere. Orson gladly accepted the invitation inside.

His jaw dropping, Orson surveyed the entrance shack and wondered how on Earth it was possible for a place like this to exist. For all around him in the entrance way, were piles of gold and gems. Chalices, swords, a…rubber duck with a birthday hat? All of this filled the area in front of him with a rickety looking ladder leading up to the tree fort proper at the back end of the room.

"Lemme help you with your bags," offered Finn while sliding Orson's stuff off the still stunned scientist. Slinging both bags over his shoulder, he disappeared up the ladder effortlessly, unhindered by the two bags.

Orson eventually recomposed himself after a few seconds of standing in stunned silence. What does this guy do for a living?

Climbing the ladder up was a chore with his debilitated arm. Still numb from his experience in Bubblegum's lab, each rung sent a jolt of prickling displeasure coursing through his arms like pins and needles. Finally reaching the living room, Orson flopped down in exhaustion. Today had been too long, and he was ready to pass out.

Finn, having set down Orson's bags by what appeared to be a wooden sofa with a blanket and pillow on it, helped Orson up and over to the sofa.

"Hey Beemo!" Finn shouted off to the side. Orson looked over to where he had shouted and saw a green robot in a chef's hat making something at the stove, standing on a stool in order to reach.

"Yes, Finn?" Replied the robot in an adorable, electronic childs voice. Turning around, it was revealed to Orson that Beemo was a living game console.

"Could you reheat some dinner for our guest? He's had a long day."

"Sure thing, Finn." The console replied, displaying a pixelated smile on its screen.

"Thank you for everything Finn. I know this must be an imposition for you, but if there's anything I can do to repay you…" He wasn't sure exactly what he could do, but Orson was extremely gracious to his host. Finn had known him for all of 10, maybe 20, minutes and was willing to help him with no real impetus.

"Don't sweat it man!" Finn said while laughing a little. "I'm super nice, not helping would be acting out of alignment." He joked, sitting down next to Orson on the couch.

Orson appreciated Finn's Happy-Go-Lucky attitude. It made him feel better about his current predicament.

Having some time to look around, Orson was surprised to see that despite the mounds of treasure below, the house itself was very…shoddy. Art either made of trash or falling apart decorated the walls. All the furniture and walls looked hand crafted, and the stove Beemo was currently cooking on seemed to be older than the one Orson had growing up. Finally, Orson's eyes found something that caused him to jolt with surprise a little. Not because it was something that didn't belong necessarily, but because it was really something he should've noticed when he came in.

Sitting in a meditative position near the entrance with fur candles around her was Flame Princess in a deep trance. She seemed dimmer than usual though, and her hair wasn't flickering as much as it had been that afternoon.

"What's Flame Princess doing over there?" Orson asked with curiosity and a bit of familiarity. Something in his head told him he knew about this, but he couldn't remember where from.

"It's something from a book Peebles found. It's some kind of meditation or Yoga or some junk that lets you control your body temp." Orson's Eyes grew wide with amazement. He'd heard about this form before in a magazine article and had trouble finding anything aside from the fact it came from the Far East. An ancient form of meditation where its practitioners had complete mastery of their bodies, for someone who looked about 18, to be able to do this would be difficult. Also, whatever lengths Bubblegum had to go through to obtain this info so many centuries later, had to be great.

"Wait a minute," another thought t-boned his current one out of nowhere, "didn't you say earlier you fire-proofed this place with those magic nails you had?"

"Yeah," Finn replied nodding, "Why do you ask?"

"Well, if this place is already fire-proof, why would she need to control her fire like that? And why didn't she use it earlier at the picnic to prevent burning you?" Orson was curious about this, meditating this late at night seemed pointless unless…

"Well, after Jake got married to Rainicorn when she had their kids, the house sorta got… empty." Finn frowned and looked down at the wooden coffee table. "It was just me and Beemo here, and the house was almost always so quiet. I was dating Flame Princess, and I started spending more and more time with her." He looked over at her with a warm smile. "Only problem though was I couldn't stay the night at her place, or else my buns would be toasted by her house. I couldn't invite her to stay over either, or else the entire tree fort would end up being burnt down. Which is when I decided to use my last 3 magic nails to fireproof the house, I probably couldn't find those darn things again if I wanted to it was so long ago." Finn looked around at the surrounding walls with a nostalgic smile. "Then the problem after that was where she would sleep. I didn't feel comfortable making a princess sleep on the couch, and Jake's old bed was too small. So I figured we could probably share a bed, if there was some way to be in the same space without me getting burned."

"So she learned how to meditate so you two could… y'know…" Orson said blushing and feeling extremely awkward. Finn's face turned red also when he saw the awkwardness showing on Orson's face.

"What? No!" Finn shouted defensively, "She wanted to spend nights here and we agreed that sharing my bed was the best option! We couldn't do tier 15 if we wanted to anyways, just kissing causes her to kinda… explode." He twiddled his thumbs in his lap. "Anyways, I asked PB for some help and she came back to me in a few weeks with this awesome meditating thingy that allows FP to control her flame. We don't use it more often though because its length varies, and she has to meditate for at least an hour for it to work. But it usually gets her through the night at least." Finn pulled out the bottle of pills PB had given him earlier at her lab. "Depending on how well these work, she might not need to meditate at all. Finn popped a pill into his mouth and dry swallowed as the green robot came over carrying a plate of spaghetti and meat balls.

"Bon Appetite!" Beemo bowed, and walked back into the kitchen slowly. Lifting the fork to his mouth, Orson realized that running here had taken a lot out of his stomach as well. He began to hungrily wolf down the food after the first forkful. Finn stared on in amazement.

Setting down his utensils on the plate, Orson leaned back on the sofa. This was the best he'd felt all day, aside from the picnic earlier.

Flame Princess came out of her trance a few minutes later, and smiled at Finn. Splitting into streaks of fire, Orson couldn't help but stare in amazement as the young fire elemental reformed sitting next to Finn on the couch snuggling up to him. Incredibly enough, Finn wasn't being burnt this time. He just smiled and put his arm around her while drawing her closer. After a few minutes of being cozy on the couch, Finn stood up with Flame Princess and yawned.

"It's getting late, we should really be gettin' to bed now. If you need anything, me and FP will be right up above you. Have a good night dude!" With that, Finn backflipped onto a nearby ladder and scurried up it. FP smiled at Finn's stunt and then looked over at Orson.

"Sorry about earlier again, I hope you have a good night and we can find a way for you to get home." She gave a concerned smile and then followed after Finn up the ladder. Orson now sat alone in the living room of the tree house.

_You're going to be stuck here_

The thoughts and emotions Orson had kept at the back of his mind weren't going to have it any more. In his sleep deprived state, there was nothing he could do to prevent them from running rampant in his head. No matter how much he tossed or turned in his blankets on the couch, it felt like some sort of ferocious drooling beast was sitting on his chest. Fear, confusion and frustration all conglomerating into a dark pit that occupied most of his mind.

_Everyone you've ever loved is gone now._

Orson felt like he was practically dead because of how tired he was, but he still couldn't find solace in the sanctuary of his dreams. Each passing hour was another hour of torment for him.

_You still haven't looked in Keller's bag yet…_

Orson looked over at the sky blue hiking bag sitting by the end where his pillow was. For some reason, he'd been carrying around both his and Keller's bags without even knowing what was inside the second one. Maybe there was something useful inside that he could use? What if Keller had packed away something from the lab that actually worked? Or what if he had books, or notes, or SOMETHING to do with time travel packed inside. Without further hesitation, Orson picked up the backpack and practically ripped it open; only to feel his hear sink further.

Figurines, dice, half-filled notebooks, two six packs of Mountain Dew, graph paper, and several 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons books filled most of the backpack along with pencils and some clothes in other parts of the backpack. Of course, this was typical Keller after all. It wasn't enough that he wanted to travel through time, he had to prove his nerdiness by taking a trip through time and then playing a game of DnD wherever he landed.

Orson sat there in silence for a few good minutes, staring at the contents of the backpack. Slowly putting away anything he took out, he sat back up on the sofa and began to laugh lightly. Slowly still, the laugh dissolved into him crying. The emotional onslaught was taking its toll, as he sobbed heavily into his pillow in order to avoid waking anyone up. His chest heaved, tears and mucus flowed freely into his pillow, and his brain turned into a swirling ball of fears and regrets.

He and Keller would never collaborate on anything again, he'd never gotten the chance to find out more about his co-worker Beth, he'd never gotten a reward for his research, he'd never spend another Christmas with his family, and he'd never make it back to his own time.

This carried on for an hour, a continuous hour of nothing but poor Orson feeling like his heart had been stomped on and thrown against a wall. What stopped the crying was unclear though. Maybe he'd run out of tears to shed, or perhaps something deep inside was shouting at him subconsciously that crying did nothing to help, but the most likely cause was that the smell of something being cooked upstairs had toppled his mental Jenga stack of problems which took his focus off them.

Sniffing the air, it was uncertain as to what was going on until a few seconds after catching notice of the smell, a loud and effeminate scream pierced the darkness and everything around it.

"Flame Princess?" Orson ventured, calling up the ladder.

"OH GLOB OH GLOB OH GLOB OH GLOB OH GLOB OH GLOB OH GLOB OH GLOB OH GLOB OH GLOB OH GLOB OH GLOB!" Finn came barreling down the ladder, nearly knocking over Orson as he sped into the kitchen. Turning on a nearby lamp revealed that Finn was rinsing his arm under the faucet with a pained expression on his face. Up and down along his left arm was a nasty looking 2nd degree burn that was starting to blister.

After about 15 minutes of rinsing the arm, Finn turned around to see a bewildered, puffy eyed Orson staring at him from the living room. "Heh, sorry if I woke ya' up. I think FP's meditation thing wore off while she was on top of my arm. The good news is, those pills Peebles gave me work though." Finn laughed a little, indicating the 2nd degree burns while he retrieved a blue glass bottle with a piece of paper attached displaying a blue cross.

"Don't worry," Orson sat down on the couch again and sighed a little, "Couldn't sleep anyways. Too many thoughts are crashing and swirling in my head to escape into a dream world."

"Huh, we should real-talk then." Finn sat down next to him, rubbing some of the liquid from the bottle along the burns causing them to disappear. "Talking about my problems with Jake always helped me feel better; maybe you need someone to talk to also."

"I'm just a bit homesick, I'd hate to burden you with my problems." Orson sank a little into the wooden sofa.

"Dude, you know there's more goin' on than that. Spill." Finn gave him a stern look.

Orson sighed, this didn't seem like the kind of person to let something just drop. "Ok, fine. If you must know, I'm feeling kind of terrified. I mean, what if I can't get home? I left a ton of people behind and it was all on a careless accident, I feel like it was all my fault. I should've never suggested using that damnable nail on the time machine in the first place."

Finn gave a comforting smile and placed a hand on his shoulder, "First of all, don't blame yourself bro. You had no idea what that thing could do, and were just being curious. Peebles always said curiosity was part of being a scientist, so you were just doing your job."

Orson couldn't help but agree with Finn on that. If there was no curiosity in science, then the world would be a much darker place.

"Secondly," Finn continued, "stay positive about your situation man. If you spend all your time in your darkest mind hole, then all your thoughts will end up being crunked up! Peebles is a genius, and she won't stop working until you're home if past experience is an indicator." Finn looked at his arm where the burn used to be, and smiled a little more. "Besides, we both have experience defying nature."

Orson couldn't stay down around Finn's optimistic attitude it seemed, he was already starting to feel better about his situation. Who knows, maybe there were more magic nails out there. Or there's some kind of time warping magic in this new world. Whatever there was, Orson was now fully reassured he could find it.

Sunlight began to pour in through a window, and Finn stood up. "Well, too late to go back to sleep now. Wanna help me make some breakfast?"

Orson smiled and also stood up nodding in reply. Today would be a brand new day, and he had a brand new perspective to match it.


	7. Finn suckers and Orson Puckers

_Authors Note: Not much to this chapter, just a nice fluff chapter to transition from the late night/early morning of last chapter for what I have planned next. Had a lot of fun writing this chapter, so hopefully everyone will have a lot of fun reading it._

_Fun story by the way folks. Night before last I checked my story and saw that I had around 675 views on my story, when I woke up this morning the number had somehow jumped to 735 (755 at the time of posting this). All I can say is just... wow... You people are awesome and amazing people, and I'm so glad that so many people are reading this.  
_

_Haven't read_ _DDT__ or Happy Sappy Stories by Not Very Cool yet? WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU? _ _All kidding aside, s/he has some very nice work, and it's all worth a look. Also, The Only Wish is a great story that WILL punch you violently in the feels. It's okay though, DarkCzar13 is a 19th degree black belt in Feels Punching, so he knows what he's doing. __  
_

_Thanks to all the support from everyone who's been reading and reviewing, and if "Some Donkus" got a proper account, I'd like to point out that I personally respond to the reviews :D  
_

_Adventure Time is the property of Frederator Studios, and was created by Pendleton Ward. I own nothing except poor, poor Orson.  
_

* * *

It was now 8 A.M., and both Finn and Orson were busy preparing a feast of a breakfast in the tree house kitchen. The dining table in the corner by a window was covered in both sunbeams and various tasty treats. Sausages, eggs, fruit, and dishes managing to combine a little of all of them were arranged on the table with just enough room for 3 people to eat if they carefully maneuvered their arms in slight and calculated motions. What had started out as two people casually cooking breakfast together had somehow turned into an ultimate chef death match cook off.

"Wait wait wait, what're you doing to that perfectly good bacon?" Asked Orson, who was himself pouring whisked eggs into a pan with diced ham and bacon bits to make the ultimate in meaty omelets.

"Makin' bacon pancakes, it's a recipe that Jake taught me that will blow anything you make out of the water!" Finn said while pouring a bowl of pancake batter over several partially cooked pieces of bacon.

Orson's face broke into a smile, "So we can get freaky and creative with this then?" He activated the burner behind the one he was currently using and moved the omelet there. He then moved over to the counter and began to rip apart a piece of salmon into tiny shreds.

"_Making pancakes, making bacon pancakes~" _ Finn began to sing a song about making bacon pancakes while Orson was busy stuffing a bell pepper with Salmon so finely shredded it looked almost like crab meat, which he then proceeded to cook in a pan on the now free burner.

An hour later, Flame Princess came down the ladder rubbing her eyes sleepily to see food not only stacked on the table, but around it and on the counters as well. Some dishes took up large amounts of space while others were small enough to be arranged around larger dishes on the same plate. Standing near a cleaned out pantry were Orson and Finn, disheveled and absolutely covered in all sorts of food stains.

"All right, so we're tied," Said Orson, looking for something to one up his host with in the barren pantry, "Unless you can somehow turn this into a breakfast item that is." Orson tossed Finn a single lemon, and Finn caught it and proceeded to analyze it for a few minutes.

Finn, using the last of his energy he could spare, got up and moved to a counter that had a small paring knife wedged between toast pieces coated in cinnamon-sugar, and smoked ham chunks. Carefully, he cut the lemon into a few wedges, and placed them on a plate near the table. "Done."

"Lemon wedges aren't breakfast foods, I doubt you can even really eat them by themselves." Debated Orson.

"Can too."

"Really? Prove it."

"Ok, I will then! They probably taste totally math now that they're in wedge form!"

"That doesn't follow any kind of logic…"

"Stuff logic!" With that, Finn grabbed a lemon wedge off the plate and took a giant bite out of the wedge. The first five seconds after that were normal, until Finn fell over with his face threatening to implode. Orson began to laugh uncontrollably at the spectacle.

"Looks like it's still a draw!" Orson exclaimed while wiping a tear from his eye.

FP stood there for a moment, still processing everything that was happening so early in the morning. After about a minute of watching Finn roll around on the floor trying to pull his lips apart and Orson laughing at this, she walked over to a nearby phone and dialed in a number.

"Good morning Jake, I'm glad you're up! Listen, Finn got a bit competitive with our houseguest and we have more breakfast than we know what to do with. How would you and the family like to come over for breakfast? Uh-huh… Ok… That's great, we can't wait to see you… Should you bring anything?" Flame Princess looked over at the piles and piles of food "Don't suppose you guys have any spare tables and chairs?"

Finn and Orson got cleaned up, and a few minutes later Jake and his family had arrived with a small table Jake was carrying on his back (also being about a few inches taller than a normal man would be in order to accomplish this).

Jake took one look in at the kitchen and his jaw stretched down to the floor. "Dude! You cooked everything you had! How'd you do all this in just two hours?"

Flame Princess giggled and looked over at Finn, "He got competitive with our house guest, and the two of them had some sort of cook off." She began to pick some plates off the floor and moved them to the coffee table so that Jake would have somewhere to sit down.

"Did he cook his jammies also?" Jake pointed at Finn's pajama sleeve, which was burnt up to his shoulder.

Finn blushed and looked at the ground while Flame Princess shot him a concerned look. "Finn, did I accidentally burn you again?" She looked extremely concerned, and Finn got a panicked look on his face.

"Nonono! Of course you didn't honey! It's just…"

"Finn, don't lie to me… Did I burn you?" Flame Princess's tone shifted from concern to concern mixed with anger. It didn't take a genius to figure out that lying to a hot-headed girl was a bad idea, and that when said girl is made of fire it's the worst possible idea, but Finn wasn't exactly the closest thing to a genius.

"Uh… Um…" Finn began to sweat profusely, maintaining eye contact with the frowning fire elemental. Maintaining eye contact was a big mistake.

"You know how I feel when you lie to me Finn…" Anger, concern, sadness were all welling up. If Finn didn't say something soon to soothe her, things would not end well.

Finn did know how she felt about lying. When Princess Bubblegum asked Finn to go on a quest involving a fire breathing hydra, Flame Princess had made him promise not to go. Not wanting to miss out on an adventure of such high caliber, Finn told her he was going to go with Jake to run a few errands and when he came back with scorch marks and fang marks on his backpack… All Finn could say on the matter was that it took the rest of the day to calm her down, and the why-wolves still ask why the Cosmic Owl doesn't just end their existence already.

Orson saw the growing tensions. Flame Princess's fire growing brighter, Rainicorn and her pups backing up behind Jake who was moving a finger across his neck rapidly at Finn, and Finn himself shrinking down. In a brief stroke of instinct and past experience, Orson leapt into action.

"I'm sorry, that was all my fault." Orson grabbed a plate of Crepes off the counter and held them in front of everyone. "To make these the right way, you have to douse it in oil (actually, alcohol, but Finn had none in the tree house) and then light it up. I didn't see Finn's arm get near me, and he caught fire with the Crepes."

Finn shot Orson the most relieved look he could possibly give at the moment and followed his lead. "Yup! That's definitely what happened!" Finn popped another one of the blue pills and proceeded to wrap his arms arms around FP. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier honey, I was just embarrassed about it and didn't want you to worry about me."

Flame Princess looked relieved and happy in his arms. "Sorry I got angry at you," her face melted into a frown. Even after years of anger management, there were still a few things that got to her.

"It's ok," Finn comforted, "I should've been more considerate, I know how worried you can get sometimes. C'mon, you and Lady can sit in the living room while me, Jake, and our guest here get the kitchen set up."

"Are you sure you don't want any more help with that?" Flame P looked off to the Kitchen at the massive amounts of plates and food. "It's kinda a lot."

"Of course!" Finn lifted Flame Princess off her feet and spun around with her a little "it's improper to make a lady do any heavy lifting!" Flame princess was giggling and both were blushing. "Just leave everything to us men!" Finn set her down and then puffed out his chest like a schoolboy trying to impress his girlfriend, while Jake molded his body to have pecs and a six pack. Orson just stood there smiling at the scene until a realization hit him.

"Wait, you're gonna make your house guest clean-up also?" Orson asked jokingly picking up a few dishes off the floor and moving them to the turned-off stove

"Heck yeah man!" Finn laughed and also began to pick up and move plates "You helped make it after all. And don't expect to get out of dish duty either."

Flame Princess moved over to the couch with Rainicorn and watched the pups play. Using her control of fire, she was able to amuse the corndogs with harmless spark sprays.

As the two men and the dog began to set about clearing up the kitchen, Jake began whispering to Finn.

"_Sorry if I almost got you in trouble with FP there bro, I forgot about the whole 'sensitive about burning Finn' thing." _Jake whispered while keeping an eye on the ladies.

"_It's cool bro," Finn_ replied in an equally hushed whisper, "_thanks for the awesome save by the way Orson. That was totally math."_

"_It was nothing," _Orson replied, moving closer so he could be heard, "_although, how'd she not notice last night? You screamed like a girl who'd seen a rat." _

"_I managed to convince her to wear earplugs to bed a while ago. I told her I occasionally screamed in my sleep, and didn't want to disturb her."_

"_Isn't that more lying?" _

"_Nope," _interrupted Jake, "_Dude does actually scream in his sleep. Kid has some messed up junk in his noggin." _

"_Jake! Quit making it sound like I have a poop-brain or something!" _ Finn whisper-shouted at the dog. Eventually, the three of them managed to find places for all of the food while Jake set down the extra table. Even with the second table though, there was just barely enough room for everyone at the table. Finn escorted Flame Princess to her seat like a gentleman, and then took his seat next to her. Orson took a seat near the end of the table while the Dog and Rainicorn family crowded around the table brought from home.

Soon, the table was filled with chatter as everyone began taking food and laughing. Finn was entertaining both Flame Princess and the corndogs with stories of his past adventures while Jake and Lady were having an exchange in Korean.

"So after the stump told me those were my only options, I got this horrifying vision of one of the clown nurses!" Finn exclaimed laughingly while FP giggled and the corndogs sat with rapt attention. As he spoke, he was waving around a sausage on the end of a fork as if it lent some sort of effect to his story.

"What happened den unca Finn?" Asked one of the younger pups

Finn laughed, "I shouted 'MY WAY!' kicked the sign off its head, and then walked straight through a bush made entirely of thorns." Everyone listening to Finns story was now laughing.

"Honey, has anyone ever told you that you're a dingus?" Flame Princess said jokingly.

Finn smiled, "Yeah, but it's cool," he grasped her hand under the table, "cause I'm your dingus." He made a silly face and Flame Princess laughed and blushed at the same time.

"Y'know, I'm still surprised you managed to cook absolutely everything we had in the kitchen," Flame Princess said after calming down a little with a raised eyebrow, "It's impressive how determined you can be sometimes."

"Well, y'know," Finn stared into her eyes with his eyes growing wider, "I wouldn't be where I am with you without a little determination."

"Finn…" Flame Princess smiled and stared into his eyes as well, the two of them lost in their own little fantasy world. That is, until the corndogs started to make vomiting noises.

"Uncle Finn, mommy and daddy are bad enough! We don't wanna see you and auntie being like them too!" Protested Syd.

Finn and Flame Princess didn't seem to notice, they were too busy connecting in ways the kids couldn't possibly fathom. Orson couldn't help but ponder on the situation.

A relationship where neither party can do more than hug, and even that has consequences. What's going through their heads while they're staring at each other? What thoughts and withheld desires must be dancing around in there? How is it possible that they've made a relationship work years for them when they've had to spend all of their time being as cautious as possible? And how do they plan on making things work for marriage?

As all these thoughts weighed on Orson's mind, he failed to realize that what he thought was an orange wedge was, in fact, one of the lemon wedges Finn had prepared earlier. Taking a large bite out of it without looking, the mixture of shock and sour caused his lips to practically fuse together as he fell to the floor and the table erupted into laughter.


	8. Back to the Candy Kingdom

_Authors Note: Well, this was a fun chapter to write. Right out the gate I had some stuff already written down and an idea of what I wanted to happen here. But towards the end was some writers block :P Always fun stuff amirite? _

_Not much in the way of laughs and good times in this chapter, but it's also where things pick up a little in advancing plot with Orson trying to get home and the Flinn sub-plot.  
_

_I would also like to say THANK YOU SO VERY VERY **VERY **much to Lileipad, TheJamJam, and HOLY CRUD ON A STICK ONE OF MY FAVORITE FLINN AUTHORS Lone Dark Knight at the moment of typing this for following my story, leaving reviews, and favoriting it. It means so much to me that you guys care enough to leave an opinion.  
_

_The Only Wish by DarkCzar13, Fiery Embrace by TheJamJam, and All the Little People by Olive Tree Hugger are some pretty amazing stories, and_ _I Love the way You Love Me__ is one of the best Bubbline stories you can ever find. Not reading these stories is like depriving your brain of food.__  
_

_As always, Adventure Time is the sole property of Frederator Studios; and was created by the tallest hobbit you'll ever see (Pendleton Ward). Merry Christmas gais!  
_

* * *

The rest of the morning passed in a similarly jovial fashion. Everyone took part in joking and laughing, and the room was filled with high spirits. After the food was gone, everyone helped with the clean-up.

"So Finn, what's your plan for today?" Asked Jake, who was scrubbing plates with Orson by the sink.

"Aside from taking a trip to the Grocery Kingdom, me and FP need to head to the Fire Kingdom and try to convince Flame King to see things our way…" Finn frowned as he carried a stack of flatware to the sink. "We kinda need his permission, but he keeps spouting something about 'you're not really royalty'."

"Why's Flame Princess going with you though? I thought she was still angry about her dad and the whole lantern thing." Asked Jake.

"Finns never had much of a good relationship with my father. They keep having these weird misunderstandings whenever they meet," Flame Princess spoke, using her flames heat to dry the wet plates, "Which is why I'm going with him, even if my Dad's a butt…" The heat on the flame increased until a plate in front of her began cracking; she cooled down upon seeing this while blushing.

"핀 같은 소리, 그는 항상 어색한왔습니다" Lady said while giggling as she phased a stack of plates into her body and carried them to their proper places.

"Heh heh, Lady says you're awkward Finn, can't say I disagree with her on it either." Jake turned off the sink and Finn gave him a slight glare as his face turned red.

"I'm not totally awkward…" Finn mumbled "What about you Orson? Got any plans for your second day in Ooo?"

"I need to head back to Princess Bubblegum's lab and see if she's reached a conclusion about the nail yet. If I can reuse it, then half of my problems are gone. I'd still need to construct a new time machine though, or find something that could be converted like the space capsule was." Orson dried his hands on a nearby dishcloth and looked up at the ceiling pensively. He had only had the space capsule because of a favor Keller called in, and he was only able to do that because the capsule had failed clearance due to repeated crashing.

"Well, there's all sorts of neat junk all over the place. Me and Jake can show you some scrap heaps that you could look through later if you want. Right Jake?" Finn said as he grabbed his green backpack up from off the wall and slung it over his shoulders, the crimson blade still attached to a strap on its side.

"Maybe dude, me and Lady are having lunch with her parents this afternoon. I'll see what's up after that's over." Jake enlarged to pick up his table and hoisted it onto his back. "Thanks for the meal Finn, catch ya on the flipside! What do we say to Uncle Finn kids?"

The three corndogs lined up in front of Finn, and gave his legs a hug. "Thank you Uncle Finn! Thank you Aunt Flame Princess! It was fun seeing you guys again!"

"Heh heh, ok kids, let's get home." Jake, Lady Rainicorn, and their pups all left the tree house.

"We should get going too if we wanna have time for anything else today. Are you ready FP?" Finn grasped his fiancée's hand and smiled at her.

"Yes Finn, ready when you are." Flame Princess smiled back at him grasping his hand.

"Oh, before we leave, do you remember the way back to the Candy Kingdom Orson?" Finn asked, knowing he'd only gone between the two points once.

Orson thought for a moment, he was pretty sure he'd just run in a straight line for most of the journey. So it shouldn't be too hard getting to the Candy Kingdom. Besides, he could always use the map Princess Bubblegum gave him to reorient himself if he did somehow get lost. "I think I'll be fine, best of luck with you two and her father." Orson picked up his bag and made his way to the Candy Kingdom.

With some better luck than he'd been having yesterday, Orson managed to have a pleasurable walk back to the kingdom. The weather was fair and the sun shone brightly down on the Cotton Candy forest surrounding the Candy Kingdom, and a pleasant sugary scent filled the air around him. No vampires were threatening to eat his soul, and some of the local fauna were an amusing mix of adorable and weird; such as a flock of two headed geese.

Eventually, he found himself inside the Candy Kingdom and at the door of Bubblegum's lab. The stone dungeon exterior still gave him the creeps, and the faint flicker of torches was a constant reminder to him of every single dungeon in every fantasy novel ever. He knocked on the large wooden door and awaited a response.

"Come in!" Came the sweet sounding voice of the princess on the other side. Pushing open the door, Orson was greeted by the pink brick lab that contrasted terribly with the dungeon exterior of the hall just outside. Princess Bubblegum stood at a portion of the counter that ran along the wall, looking through a microscope at the halves of the magic nail. As he stepped inside, Peebles motioned for him to sit down at the center table. "Move some of the junk out of the way and take a seat; I'll be with you shortly."

He knew it was rude to look at another scientist or engineer's research without permission, so Orson tried his best not to look at the papers resting on a chair onto the table with some other papers on the table. Although, when one paper slipped out from the rest, he couldn't help but skim a little… It's only natural after all, to look directly at something you're trying to retrieve right?

**_Operation: Super-Nova_**

**_Collaborators_**

**_Princess Bonnibel Bubblegum_**

**_Dr. Princess, M.D._**

**_Dr. Ice Cream, M.D._**

**_Marceline Abadeer_**

**_Lady Rainicorn_**

**_Turtle Princess_**

**_Lumpy Space Princess_**

Orson had seen this style of paper before. Whenever a problem was too big for just one scientist to tackle, he or she would call on anyone willing to help in order to split the work. They all usually placed their names on a sheet which would indicate who worked on the project and usually it was placed in some order. But this list had three princesses, two doctors, a girl, and Jake's wife on it. What on earth could they possibly be working on?

Orson shoved this thought to the back of his mind, it wasn't his business to pry and he might be leaving soon. It was none of his concern and he didn't mind if it never became any of his concern. Picking up the paper he lifted a stack halfway up from the table and slid it in with the rest as he took his seat. Bubblegum came over from her microscope with a clip board stacked to maximum capacity with papers and began reviewing some of her data before finally looking up at him.

"Well, I have some good news and some bad news. Which would you like to hear first?" She looked frazzled, like she hadn't known sleep in some time. Strands of pink poked out of place at weird angles, the sacks under her eyes seemed to have sacks, and her voice was shaky and weak.

"Bad news I suppose." Orson had always learned to take the bad first, that way whatever good news there was to be had would be amplified.

"Well, after careful examination and some *Big Yawn* experimentation, excuse me, results on the nature of the magic nail were… inconclusive. While the nail looks like it broke cleanly in half from a common perspective, magnification reveals small chips and fractures in the edges of the break keep it from being 100% whole." She lifted some pages up on her clipboard to look at a data table towards the center of the stack. "Repeated testing with various reagents on the nail reveals that it's in fact not working, but I can't be sure if it's due to the micro-fractures or the nature of the nail being one use. I'm sorry."

Orson's heart sank, how was he supposed to get home now? The only reason he could travel through time was because of the nail, he didn't know any formula or equation capable of transcending the laws of space-time. That would be Keller's domain, and even he hadn't figured it out. The color of the room seemed to drain out from around him, and some form of intangible darkness started to close in from all sides. "So what's the good news then?" He muttered, feeling deep depression beginning to sink in.

"I sent Peppermint Butler out to the crash site to see if there was anything we could learn from your vessel. Despite its age, we were able to extract some VERY detailed bits of information from the computer terminal inside the capsule. Algorithms, formulas, calculations…" She flipped the clipboard around to show Orson a page with quite possibly the most complex formulas he'd ever seen in all his life, and then she began to flip through about 26 more pages of formula before hitting the actual clipboard. "With this information," she looked up at him and gave a weak smile, "I think it's entirely possible for me to get you home. But I have some other projects which have a substantially higher priority at the moment. It might take months before I can return you to your time period."

Orson couldn't believe his ears; he would be able to return home after all! Scattering papers everywhere, he jumped the table and wrapped his arms around the pink monarch. "THANK YOU SO MUCH PRINCESS!" Princess Bubblegum smiled a little before detaching him.

"As I said though, it's definitely going to take a while. I'm the only one capable of working on a project of this magnitude and I'm already stretched paper thin." As he regained composure, he helped Princess Bubblegum collect the scattered pieces of paper off the floor. He was so happy to at least have a slight chance of returning home. He was already picturing his return when an idea popped into his head.

"Excuse me Princess, but what if I helped you with this project? Or perhaps whatever projects you need help with so that you don't have to worry about the workload? As an engineer, I'm more adept at building and designing, but I know my way around a lab. I swear I can be useful to you, so may I please help?" Orson sank to his knees begging. The sooner he got home, the happier he was.

"Hmm," Princess Bubblegum rubbed her chin in thought, "You're currently staying with Finn right?"

"Yes Princess."

"Then I can't let you work on my current project, I don't know you that well and Finn can't know about it yet. However, if you think you can be of use then you're more than welcome to help with the reconstruction of your time machine." Orson's face burst into another wide smile, but something bothered him about what the princess had said. Why couldn't Finn know about her project? She seemed pretty friendly with him before, so why would she hide something from him? Oh well, it couldn't be anything terrible. As unstable as he'd pegged her to be previously, she was actually a very kind and intelligent person, err-, candy-person.

"Thank You so much!" He stood up and shook her hand smiling to seal the deal.

"Hold on a sec," Princess Bubblegum walked over to a cabinet and pulled out a rather large book, placing it in front of Orson, "Our sciences are separated by one thousand years, you might wanna make sure you know what you're dealing with here."

"No problem princess," Orson sat down with the book and cracked it open, "I'm in my element here."

**-A few minutes later-**

Orson was NOT in his element. Plantoids, Zanoits, Boobletrons, and other weird nonsense terms floated around the pages of the text. It was as if somebody had given a kid permission to rewrite a textbook in any way he saw fit, so he decided to change all the names of things to silly sounding words. But strangely enough, Orson was adapting.

Orson always had enjoyed studying; it was sort of like a talent for him. Back in school, he'd purposely read through his textbooks for math and science in his spare time. He always enjoyed the biographies more than the fictional tales in the libraries too. It was like he was naturally disposed to absorb knowledge. Whereas others took their knowledge as a sponge might take water, he took it in like a vacuum cleaner. Not to say that he was a genius or that he had an eidetic memory, but he could pick up things incredibly fast.

Orson closed the book and turned to PB, who was working over at her desk. "It's getting late, so I should probably leave if I want to avoid a repeat of the last time I was out late. Is it ok if I take this book with me?"

"Yeah, sure…" PB seemed to just barely be able to understand Orson in her current sleep deprived state.

"You should get some rest Princess, 'work can only suffer from a brain that isn't there', as my grandpa would say." He frowned with some concern; the Princess's obsession with her work was starting to remind him of his mother, another woman who couldn't stop working no matter what.

"Good idea…" PB mumbled, before letting her head drop onto the desk. A few seconds later, snoring could be heard from the table.

Assured the princess had not suddenly keeled over from the stress of her work, Orson began to make his way back to the treehouse.


	9. The hell are Zanoits anyways?

_Authors Note: So Christmas is approaching, and since I don't know when I'll be updating next, I'd like to use this chapter to say Merry Christmas to one and all! Happy Holidays, so on and so forth. _

_With that out of the way, I'd like to preface this chapter with a warning. I believe Flame King when he says that HE'S evil. I don't believe FP is, but I think Flame King is definitely evil (despite the fact he says evil like a five year old would to sound cool). I also would like everyone to know that I'm a firm believer in "You gotta work for your happy ending.", and that's my excuse for putting up the roadblock that appears in this chapter for Finn and FP XDDD  
_

_I'd also like to thank NeoNimbus and Falloutcaleb for favoriting and following my story! As I've mentioned before, it really means a lot to me, and the more people following, the more inspiration I get for future chapters! :D Also, in response to Some Donkus's review, I'd like to point out that I am unable to read the AT comics. I don't believe my local bookstore carries them, or if they do, I'll be damned before I'm seen walking into the young childrens section to look for a book XD Although, if Peebles did build a time machine, I'm sorry for my lack of knowledge on the subject.  
_

_Had a bit of fun writing this chapter. Getting to make up the science-y terms was fun, and I'll probably bring back Marceline again, watching the episode "Go With Me" made me want to. So more fun times lay ahead! :D  
_

_As always, Adventure Time is the sole property of Frederator Studios and was created by Pendleton "EPIC BEARD" Ward. I own nothing except for Orson (and he's a scrawny nerd).  
_

* * *

"_If the flux in the buubatronic matrix is corrupted, then what is the proper way to realign the planetoids?" _

Orson stared at the page in confusion as he sat at the table in the treehouse pondering the answer, before writing, "_Balance the matrix by adding greebles equal to the destabilizing amount of zanoits. Use heat to then stabilize._" He wasn't even 100% sure what he'd just written, but considering the chapter he'd read through it seemed like it should be the right answer. Checking his answer against the one in the back of the book, he scratched out "Zanoits" and wrote "Octals".

Sitting back from his work, he surveyed the table in front of him. Several balled up pieces of paper littered the ground around him, and one of Keller's notebooks sat open in front of him with an assortment of weird formulas written on it. Next to the notebook, was the borrowed text from the Candy Kingdom which was open to an assessment on material covered in the chapter. Sitting in silence, Orson stared at his work for a minute before throwing his pencil against the notebook and shouting, "WHAT IN GODS NAME IS AN OCTAL!?"

He was sure he'd been through all the material in the chapter, he flipped through the book until he found information on what Octals were before laughing a little; as if it was ridiculous he'd forgotten what they were. He'd been doing this since he'd gotten back to the tree house two hours ago.

Deciding enough was enough; Orson shut the book and looked out the window beside him. The moon was hung high up in the sky, wreathed with stars and partially obscured by clouds rolling in from the nearby mountains. It was already pretty late, and Finn and Flame Princess were still gone. He became worried about the young couple, what if they ran into that thing that tried to eat his soul? Or what if some other mythical horror ate them?

Orson pushed his worries to the back of his head. Even if something terrible did happen, what could he have done about it? He didn't know how to contact anyone, and his main method of self-defense was currently limited to six shots. Moving over to the stove, he began to prepare some dinner for himself when a loud ***BANG***caused Orson to spin around wielding a large chef's knife close to his chest in preparation for whatever was coming.

A few seconds later Flame Princess came storming up the ladder, breathing heavily with molten tears in her eyes. Something or someone had managed to piss her off royally judging from the look on her face. Orson set the knife down and approached her cautiously.

"Flame Princess?" He ventured carefully, "Is everything alright? Where's Finn?" Without warning or apparent reason, Flame Princess delivered a vicious punch to his stomach causing Orson to crumple on the ground.

"LEAVE ME ALONE!" Flame Princess shouted, before disappearing up to her bedroom. Finn came up the ladder panting and out of breath just a few seconds later.

"Oh gob," Finn helped Orson up, "are you ok? Hang on, it's been a long day. Let me talk to her." Finn helped Orson over to the couch before disappearing up the ladder towards the sound of Flame Princess crying.

About fifteen minutes later, the crying had stopped and Finn descended the ladder with scorch marks on his shirt's shoulder about the size of tear drops. Releasing a heavy sigh, he sat down next to Orson on the couch.

"I'm guessing things didn't go well with your discussion and the Flame King?" Orson asked, rubbing his stomach.

"Heh that actually went better than the last two times I tried talking with him," Chuckled Finn with a weak smile," This time I wasn't chased out by flame guards or fire wolves, but that could've been because I had Flame Princess there with me this time." Finn's face contorted into a frown, "Glob that guy is the biggest donk I've ever met, and that's including the Ice King!" Finn threw his arms up into the air as he exclaimed this, his temper rising.

Orson got up and began to prepare a pot of tea. Tea always seemed to calm everyone's nerves. "Out of simple curiosity," he turned on a stove burner and placed the kettle of water on it, "what happened there that has the both of you so bent out of shape?"

Finn clenched his fists into tight balls, his knuckles actually beginning to turn white from the pressure. "Remember how I told you that I can't kiss FP without her exploding?"

"Yeah, I remember."

"Well, she had to spend most of her childhood locked inside a giant lantern because she has an unstable elemental matrix. Part of why we have to be careful around each other."

"And there's no way to fix her matrix or whatever?" Orson prepared two cups and grabbed a box of teabags from his duffel bag. He wasn't the kind of person to prepare for a trip and not bring tea.

"Not as far as we can find." Finn sighed and looked forlornly at the ceiling above. "Anyways, we need his blessing to get married; but we also need it because if we get married in the Fire Kingdom, there is a way for me and her to… y'know… make it official." Finn said blushing slightly, "The lantern was made to contain FP and her matrix, so we figure that even if she does lose control again, she won't accidentally destroy the Earth."

"And the Flame King is standing between you two and a happy marriage?" Orson sat down on the couch while he waited for the water to boil. "But wait, if he won't let you guys get married because you're not a noble, then why would he let you even date her? It seems kinda weird."

"Well, Jake first got her released by saying I was a prince. Then he let us continue to date after I confessed to him that I wasn't a prince because he didn't think our relationship would last. It's funny though, that question is kinda what's upsetting us." Finn's fists were shaking as he recalled the memories of that afternoon. "FP got really mad because Flame King was being a stubborn butt, and shouted at him 'What do you mean, 'I didn't think it would last'?'. He told us that he counted on us discovering her unstable matrix the hard way, and thought it would be the perfect way to expand Fire Kingdom territory. After all, what's the one race that could survive the Earth being burned up from the inside?" Finn slammed his fist on the coffee table in front of them in a fit of rage, sending a large crack up the center. "Everyone else would burn, but at least his daughter would probably be okay. She could just merge with the lava eventually and come up to the surface or something like that, according to him. He's an evil monster who would use his own daughter's emotions for his own gain, but we still need to be nice to him if we want a proper wedding." Orson suddenly began to feel lucky that all he received was a punch to the gut earlier. "Heck, even if we did skip the kissing part there's a chance things could go wrong. Her matrix can't handle 'extreme romance' according to peebles. It was a huge risk just proposing to her, and things don't get much more romantic than a wedding." Finn clutched his head between his hands and slouched over on the couch, "Why does defying nature have to be so darn hard?"

The kettle began to whistle, and Orson stood up while moving over to the stove to reduce the heat. "How come you guys don't just skip getting married? I know a few people from my time who don't believe in the whole 'marriage' thing who just live together, and you guys seem to already be doing that."

"We tried that, sorta." Finn sighed, "but our friend Tree Trunks kept going on about how it's immoral or something for two young lovers to live under the same roof unmarried. It wasn't too bad, but she actually got a crowd of candy citizens to stand outside my house in protest once."

Orson contemplated things while he poured the tea into two mugs, bringing one over to Finn and sitting down next to him. "Well, I'm not an expert on relationships. Or the chemistry of elementals or pretty much anything from this time period. But I can give you some wisdom my dad gave to me many years ago, 'If and when you find yourself at your breaking point, stop whatever it is you're trying to accomplish and ask yourself 'Is this worth really worth it?' If you don't know the answer immediately, it's probably not worth it.'"

Finn took a sip of his tea and smiled, "Thanks, but I did that a while ago and found that answer."

"You and Princess Bubblegum seem to be good friends, why not just ask her for a position of nobility?" Asked Orson, as he took a sip from his own mug; he could feel the stress of the day melt away.

"I tried that, but apparently the court of the Candy Kingdom is full or something. I asked every princess I'd ever helped, but I kept running into walls. Either their court was full, or there was some obscure law preventing anything but their species from being nobility." Finn let out a groan, and took a large swig of his tea. "I really hate politics right now."

Orson felt pangs of sympathy for Finn; it was hard being separated from the people you love by metaphysical bounds. It would probably set him back on getting home, but… "Hey, it looks like the way kingdoms work hasn't changed much. I used to study Medieval History back in college, maybe I can find something for you to work with?"

Finn's eyes widened and his jaw dropped slightly. "You'd help someone you barely even know?"

Orson laughed a little, "So far all I've done is get beaten up by this world and eat your food, it's the least I could do. Besides, that's exactly what you've been doing the past 2 days; it'd be rude if I didn't somehow respond in kind."

"Thanks man, I'll never forget this!" Finn closed his eyes and clasped his hands together in gratitude.

"Although, there's one thing I would like if it's not too much trouble. You see, I'm trying to learn the science in this world, and I'm having some trouble with a few things; think you could help me out?"

"Math dude, of course I will!" Orson and Finn spent the next hour going over the borrowed textbook, Finn pointing out terms and formulas to him as they went. Eventually, Flame Princess descended from upstairs and came over to the two of them.

"Sorry about earlier Orson, I was just so angry at my dad; I was ready to destroy anything at that point…" Wobbling on her feet she clutched Finn's shoulder without leaving a burn.

"It's cool, Finn explained everything and I can't blame you. I'd be ready to punch someone after that kind of day too." Orson stood up and put his mug of tea in the sink, while Finn stood up looking concerned at Flame Princess.

"Are you ok FP? You seem kinda… woobly" Finn asked, steadying Flame Princess against him.

"I'm fine honey," she said resting her head on his shoulder, "I'm just tired. It's been a long day and all."

Finn swept Flame Princess off her feet and carried her over to the couch before setting her down and taking a seat next to her. "Let's rest a little down here then, it's dangerous to use a ladder in your condition." Flame Princess rested her head against Finn's chest and smiled as he wrapped his arms around her, drawing her closer to him. "We'll get things to work out in the end, I promise."

Flame Princess grew brighter, "I know we will honey. After all, we've already come so far." She spoke with a weary voice.

Orson watched with a smile on his face from the kitchen. This was quite possibly the closest he'd ever come to seeing true love. Not to say that he didn't know some friends that were downright adorable, but he couldn't say for sure that they would jump through all the hoops that Finn and Flame Princess were jumping through.

Orson returned to his book for a few more minutes, before realizing that Finn and Flame Princess had fallen asleep on the couch, curled up against each other in the spot he was supposed to sleep in. Not wanting to disturb them, he became suddenly thankful for another ability that he'd learnt in college: How to use a textbook as a halfway-decent pillow.


	10. Return of the Vampire Queen

_Authors Note: Woot! Tenth chapter guys! This is pretty exciting for me, it's the longest I've ever written in a fanfiction. And it's all because of awesome people like SCIK, TheJamJam, DarkCzar, NeoNimbus, and pretty much anyone who has ever reviewed a chapter of this story. Without you guys and this awesome community, I wouldn't have been motivated to keep writing. _

_Everyone have a Merry Christmas? Hope so, cause this is my post-Christmas gift to all :D And it's only one day late! Seriously though, this chapter was a tough one to write. I wanted everything to line up perfectly, and I'm still afraid it wobbles a bit :/ Worked in more Marceline, and it felt more natural writing her into this chapter. Also, if you guys like what happens between her and Orson in this chapter, then future chapters are going to be even more fun. :)  
_

_Got a silver pocket watch for Christmas, because swag is for boys and class is for men. Class is more substantial and believable than swag, for those who don't know. It's also kind of how I view Orson in this story. He doesn't have any special training, extra courage, or magical powers because that makes him a more believable and relatable character. There have been MANY OC's in AT stories I've read, where I just sorta roll my eyes at them because 'Mary just took down The Lich/Hunson Abadeer' or 'Gary has 12 years of training with 12 different weapons, fighting styles, and he has a suit that gives him all these fun abilities.' While those things might be nice if they were real, it just makes the character seem... unrealistic. The character can have a ton of swag, but it makes no difference if they don't have any class to actually carry themselves with.  
_

_Well, that was a rather lengthy rant on OC's, and I'm not even entirely sure where it came from. Wouldn't blame anyone for skipping over that, but if anyone skips over The Only Wish by DarkCzar13, or Fiery Embrace by TheJamJam, you're just a terrible person who should feel BAD. Both are excellent stories by excellent authors and while you're at it, check out Awakening of Heroes and Tales of the Alternate Universe by SCIK1012. Although, if you haven't read those last two, you're probably new to the site. To which I say, Welcome :)  
_

_As always, Adventure Time is the sole property of Frederator Studios. It was also created by bearded genius Pendleton Ward, and I own nothing except for Orson. Also, if you like the story, leave a review. If you don't, still review and tell me what you don't like about it. Can't get better without knowing where you went wrong after all.  
_

* * *

The following morning for Orson had something of a rocky start. He awoke to find Finn and Flame Princess gone, leaving only a note on the coffee table that read "Gone out to the Grocery Kingdom, if you need anything, I'm on speed dial for Jake's old phone. –Finn" Orson looked around and found an old military issue phone, complete with gigantic batteries and headset. Putting that into his duffle bag, he'd made his way to the Candy Kingdom under the midday sun. Wandering through the forest, he'd come upon an unexpected figure amongst the cotton candy trees.

"Well well well, it sure was brave of you to leave the tree house." A teenage voice taunted from behind one of the papery trees. Looking around, Orson tried to find its owner. "To be honest, I'm kinda surprised." A young woman holding a red umbrella stepped out from behind a tree in front of him. Long ebon hair put up into a ponytail, Marceline was wearing a plain red tank top with a pair of jeans. In her other hand, was a large brown bag.

Orson jumped back and drew the six-shooter from his lab coat pocket. While he knew how to use the hand gun, he was unable to aim properly due to his hands shaking tremendously. "I thought vampires were supposed to HATE the goddamn sun! Not go around with a friggin' parasol!" Orson hadn't even remembered to pull back the hammer, all he was thinking about now was how far the nearest crossable river was.

Marceline's face turned from a smile to an expressionless, somewhat distant look. "Huh, I remember those. Won't do you any good though, vampire. Nothing except a stake in the heart can take me down, that'd just hurt like nobody's business." Marceline observed the massive amount of shaking in Orson's hands and smirked. "That is, if you could even hit. Chill man, I'm out here on business and I'd probably get a lecture from _her majesty_ if I showed up with bullet holes. Rather not show up in the first place, but this is more important than some old childhood feud." She said 'her majesty' with a good amount of disdain, and chuckled as she lifted the bag slightly to show its significance.

Orson didn't lower his gun, but had enough of his train of thought salvaged to notice that she was talking about Princess Bubblegum. "What business does a vampire have with a princess? And what exactly is in that bag anyways?" Panic still laced his words, and his arms and legs still trembled greatly. As fun as it was to discuss zombie/vampire/werewolf themed apocalypse scenarios with his friends, Orson had a major fear of paranormal creatures.

"Look, if you're still aiming that thing at me because of what happened when we first met, I'm sorry. I was just pranking you man, it's kinda what I do. Ask Finn about me and he can vouch, but I'm not going to answer any of your questions until you learn how to be a gentleman and not point a weapon at a lady." Marceline crossed her arms, supporting the parasol on the crook of her elbow. She gave him another smirk as he lowered the gun, knowing she probably wasn't bluffing about how useless it was in the current situation.

"Good boy," she said while uncrossing her arms, "I'm working on a project with Princess Snooty-Pink-Hair, and…" she paused, looking Orson up and down. There was some serious fun here that could be had if she played her cards right, "all I can tell you about that is it involves Finn and his fiery bride-to-be. The stuff in this bag is part of the project, and therefore, top secret."

Orson remembered the Project Super-Nova paper, could this be the same Marceline listed on there? And could it be the same project that Bubblegum refused to tell him about before? "Why all the secrecy though? Why won't anyone tell me what's up with all this stuff going on with Finn and his girlfriend?"

Marceline smiled. "Of course good ol' Bonnibel wouldn't tell him about this," she thought to herself, "which means this just got more interesting."

"Once again, it's not for me to say. But you look trustworthy, think you could take this to Princess Bubblegum for me?" She tossed Orson the bag, and he caught it without thinking of what could be inside. His arms buckled slightly under the weight of the bag, but he straightened out. "You won't look in there when my back's turned, right? Cause if you did…" Marceline's head twisted into that of a grotesque snake demon, complete with blood red eyes and fangs that dripped venom, "I might have to actually eat your soul this time!" Orson could just barely make out the sound of her laughing as he disappeared at an incredible speed towards the candy kingdom.

_2 Miles later_

Orson was now standing, hunched over and panting, in the middle of an alley somewhere in the Candy Kingdom. Still clutching the bag, he stood perplexed as to what to do next. How would Marceline possibly know if he looked in the bag? It wasn't sealed, and could hold some serious clues as to what "Super-Nova" was. On the other hand, he did like where his soul currently was and wasn't about to remove it any time soon. But on the other OTHER hand, he really wanted to know what was in the bag…

A few seconds later, Orson found himself perplexed. Inside the bag was an assortment of ores, gems, and herbs. Each was a different shape, size, and color than the other materials in the bag. How on god's green earth could this possibly relate to Finn and Flame Princess? Taking one of the stones, a blue one with little white specks dotted along it, he memorized the details for later. He might be able to look it up in a book at the princess's lab if he could disguise it as researching material for the time machine. Placing it back in the bag, he found his way back to the Candy Castle's laboratory.

The pink princess, Princess Bubblegum, sat at a table analyzing the work Orson had done in the text book to determine his aptitude for the science of the time.

"You seemed to be picking it up quite well at first," Bubblegum shuffled the papers with a puzzled expression, "but… did you ask Finn for help at any point?"

Orson gave the princess a puzzled look, "Yeah, he helped me with some of it. Why do you ask?"

"Because half the work is wrong, and you seemed to be doing fine up until then. And Finn is terrible at math and science." She laughed a little, "you sorta asked the F student for help on your work. No offense to Finn or anything. Any who, if you wanna start working on your time machine, I left the data from the computer on the desk over there." Bubblegum pointed to the wall length counter, where a sheave of paper sat neatly organized next to some blank pieces of paper and a pencil. "Since the calculations are all already done, all you need to do before constructing the actual machine is find which dataset goes with which feature."

"Thank you Princess," Orson bowed slightly in gratitude, "you've been a tremendous help to me. But do you have any books on ores? I would like very much to familiarize myself with the materials available to me in this land."

The princess just smiled and pointed to a blue book resting on a shelf above the counter, "That book has some information on ores and minerals, and I'll make a map to the Ooo library for you later." Bubblegum noticed the brown paper bag in Orson's hand, "Watcha got there?"

Orson realized he'd still been holding onto the bag, and looked at it with mild surprise. "Oh, a vampire gave me this and told me it needed to go to you for your project… and then she threatened to eat my soul…"

Bubblegum snatched the bag out of his hands and looked inside, a large smile appearing on her face. "Yup… That'd be Marceline. Listen, I gotta go process these in another part of the castle, but you'll be okay down here right? Right!" Before Orson could reply, Bubblegum had dashed from the lab clutching the bag close to her. If there was any time to do research behind the princess's back, it was now.

Pulling down the book from its shelf, Orson began to flip through the pages searching for something that might resemble the ore he had handled earlier. Luckily enough, the book contained photographs of each ore listed, and he found it soon enough. The sample was slightly larger than the portion he'd seen in the bag, but the resemblance was uncanny otherwise.

"_Firmus Unda, or Solid Water, is a rare mineral commonly found twenty miles below sea level in the mountainous region that prefaces the water kingdom. Due to an innate ability to neutralize fire, this ore was once sought after and refined by the water kingdom for weapons and armor against the Fire Kingdom." _ Orson sat back and took in all the information on the page before him. Why would Princess Bubblegum want something like this? Maybe he just hadn't read enough, so he continued down the page.

"_Interestingly enough however, this ore can be refined into two different metals. Metal smelted in the traditional manner brings out the innate properties of Firmus Unda, but metal smelted using the same methods used for forging cold iron with Firmus Unda inverts the properties of the ore and will instead AMPLIFY the heat, intensity, and instability of any given fire. Once again, the Water Kingdom once used this as a weapon against their Fire Kingdom foes by giving rings (and other such trinkets) made from a cold forged Firmus Unda and Bauxite alloy, causing the wearer to burn out extremely quickly. Fire Kingdom soldiers have also been known to equip such baubles purposely, in desperate attempts for a suicide attack with their brief increase in power." _

Orson's jaw dropped. No matter how you cut it, this was still terrible. However, he couldn't just accuse Bubblegum of trying to kill Flame Princess. She was still so nice, and she was one of the only people in the land who could possibly help him get home. Besides, there were other things in that bag, maybe he just picked the wrong thing to analyze. Not to mention, if he confronted her on the matter, she'd know he looked in the bag. And if she knew, then chances were good that Marceline would know…

The door to the lab was flung open, causing Orson to slam the book shut and scream loudly, "Pleasedon'thurtmeIdidn'tmeananythingbyitohgodohgodo hgod!"

A slightly perplexed Princess Bubblegum stood in the doorway, giving Orson a weird look. "Chill dude, I just forgot my pen." Princess Bubblegum walked to her desk, grabbed a blue ballpoint pen from it along with several papers, and then turned back. "Looks like Finn's starting to rub off on you, it's like you'd thought I was a vampire or something."

Orson laughed, sweating nervously underneath his own lab coat. "Yeah, that would just be… ridiculous. Heh heh."

Bubblegum shot him another weird look, "Ooooook, well if you need me, I'll be in the candy forge just three doors down. Knock first." Bubblegum exited and Orson let out a sigh of relief, slapping his hand against his forehead.

"Way to go," he muttered to himself, "you weren't being totally suspicious at all." Orson gathered the data off the desk and began to read over it. Why should he get caught up in their affairs anyways? He was supposed to be long dead when this was all occurring, and he hardly knew these people.

A mental image crept back into Orson's head. Finn and Flame Princess holding each other, smiling and gazing into each other's eyes with a kind of pure love and longing that could only be forged by a relationship with such heavy restrictions as theirs. He felt something tug at his heart and he let out a sigh.

"Why am I so damn soft?" Orson asked himself before writing some quick notes down. After about an hour or two of going over the time machine data, Orson packed up his things and went three doors down to another set of large wooden doors. Knocking on the door loudly three times, Orson was greeted with an expedited response.

"Who's there?" Her voice sounded slightly panicked, like she'd been caught doing something wrong.

"Just me Princess," Orson responded, "There's some stuff I need to do research on that your lab seems to be… lacking in. Could you direct me to that library you mentioned earlier?" A few moments later, a small slip of paper covered in blue dust slid under the doorway. It was a crude drawing showing a straight line between two places, one labeled "Candy Kingdom" and the other "Library". As well as a small compass in the bottom left.

"While you're over there, ask Turtle Princess to send over some books I ordered. Tell her I'm sending Peppermint Butler later with the old ones later in the day. Thanks!" The Princess shouted hurriedly through the door.

With this new information in hand, Orson set out from the Candy Kingdom to the library of Ooo. He was determined to help his host, and he needed to get to the bottom of whatever this "Operation Super-Nova" thing was. "Dad was right," Orson muttered to himself as he set off under the blue skies and bright sun of midday in Ooo, "too damn soft for my own good."


	11. The Library of Ooo, TP, and Understandin

_Author's Note: HAPPY 2013 EVERYONE!_

_With that out of the way, I have a few things to say. One, is just... wow. I can't believe it, but the stats on this fic are just... astounding 0.o  
_

_Secondly, I'd like to thank StrikerXE for favoriting and reviewing the story; and I'd also like to thank Restin Peece for following. You guys are awesomeness in the purest of forms! :D It's people like you guys who make it possible for the views to jump from 1.5k to 1.8k  
_

_In reply to Some Donkus: Thanks dude, you're pretty Math too, and you're one of the guys who's been with the story since it's humble beginnings XD. Yeah, last chapter was short (in comparison to my other chapters), and I apologize. To make up for it, here's an even longer chapter with even more Marceline! :D  
_

_In reply to Feet: You're right, a lot of fics on this site don't seem to include Jake. But don't worry, there'll be more of him in the future, count on it. Also, nice reference to one of my favorite episodes there you sly dog :D  
_

_So, I've been reading a lot of awesome stories that've been popping up. White Drakim 13's Jealousy and Hatred of One Anothers Flames, Nikolai the Beast's Beast of Burden, and Florence M. Welch's Adventurer's Unite are all really well written. Also, if Schrodinger's Zombie doesn't update Twitch soon, I think I'll develop twitches of my own in anxiety 0.o  
_

_Finally, Adventure Time is property of Frederator Studios. If you really wanna support the show, buy ALL the merchandise (also, the soundtrack to Hey Ice King is downright BITCHIN')  
_

* * *

Why did he agree to help this guy? Why did he agree to go to some decrepit library in the middle of nowhere? What the hell was wrong with him?

All of these questions and several others floated around in Orsons head as he made his way to the central hallway of the Ooo Library toting several large and dusty books. Sure, it'd been interesting seeing the great, brick domed building from the hilltop. And sure, the sheer size and volume of the libraries book collection had stunned him into speechlessness, but that was before he had the great displeasure of actually traversing the horrific place.

Books were organized by rhyming pattern rather than any formal organizing system, meaning any books on Ooo Royalty had about twenty one different places it could be. Then when he started walking through the aisles, he discovered that this library essentially had a constant gigantic middle finger flipped to the laws of physics. Twisting passages and bookcases jutting out at odd angles there were several times he could've sworn he was using the tops of previously passed bookcases as walkways. The only reason he was able to find the books he did find was because he slipped and fell down a slide made entirely of children's cardboard books into a pile of unsorted books.

Sitting down at a large oak table, Orson pulled off one of the books. A large, leather bound tome with a gold crown emblazoned on its cover. Surrounding it were a variety of differently colored and shaped gems, and below in silver-coated text was "_The Royals of Ooo: A guide to the many Kingdoms of the land of Ooo". _ Reading through the first few chapters was tedious, but also interesting. It was like reading from a list of locations for children's bedtime stories.

One kingdom was made up breakfast foods, specializing in the production of things like Orange Juice. Another was made from glimmering emeralds, and its princess had a giant emerald embedded in her head in place of a crown. Another still had cloud people, who never stopped partying in their lofty clouds above the kingdom; partying with their giant wolf head god!

Orson wanted to keep on discovering the many kingdoms, but he kept getting this prickling feeling at the back of his neck. The kind of feeling one gets when they detect someone spying on them. After all he'd been through in this land, Orson wasn't about to ignore it either. Turning around in his seat, Orson spotted a turtle, about roughly his height, staring at him from the opposite end of the library. Noticing him returning the stare with equal amounts of amazement, the turtle began moving towards him while pushing a cart full of books. For some reason, this turtle had long blonde hair, and a crown similar to Bubblegums; except this crown had an elongated stem.

"Excuse me, but I couldn't help but notice you look a lot like a…" It spoke in a confusing falsetto voice, like a man trying to sound female but failing. Like some unfortunate high school girl who was struggling with a severe case of puberty.

"Yes, I'm a human. It's a long story on how I got here, and I have a lot of work to do. So if you'll please excuse me…" The poor thing looked rather hurt by his response. He'd been under a lot of stress, but that wasn't any excuse to start acting rude to a…lady?

As the blonde haired turtle began to walk away, looking dejected, Orson stood up and put a hand on her shoulder. "Wait, I'm sorry. That was rude of me; it's just been a long day. I'm Orson, it's a pleasure meeting you."

The turtle's face broke into a wide, buck-tooth smile. "I'm Turtle Princess, it's nice to meet you too Orson." Turtle Princess reached out and shook his hand, the scaly feeling of her hand making his skin crawl slightly. "I'm the one who runs this library, so if you need absolutely _anything_, be sure to let me know. _Ooooooook_?"

If Orson's skin was crawling before, it was now full on trying to escape from his body. Never in a million years would he have ever dreamed of meeting an anthropomorphic turtle, and now he was pretty sure this one was hitting on him.

"Uh, thanks. Heh…" Orson would've tried backing up, but the chair seat pressed against his leg was telling him that would just end in more embarrassment. But, he did see some advantage in this. "Actually, I could use some help. This book I'm reading, it lacks information on Fire Kingdom royalty and rules. It says something about 'matters on royalty may only be scribed by approved Fire Kingdom writers' or something like that. I don't suppose you could bring me any books on the matter, could you?" If Turtle Princess ran the library, chances are she could locate the books much faster than he could.

"I'm sorry," Turtle Princess frowned, "but all books regarding the Fire Kingdom are currently out right now."

"What." Orson couldn't believe this, in a gigantic library that seemed to defy every single spacial law, all books on a broad subject were currently checked out.

"They're being used for important research right now, I'm sorry." Turtle Princess looked back at him with another smile "but if you're interested in anything else, I'd be happy to run and get it… _for you._" Orson really wished she'd stop putting emphasis in her sentences.

"Oooooook, do you have any books on fire elementals in general?"

"Checked out."

"How about humans?"

"Checked out."

"Magical artifacts?"

"Sorry, but checked out."

Orson thought for a second, and chuckled to himself. After so many negative responses, why not cheer himself up with a playful (if not somewhat clichéd) joke. "How about a nice book on constructing high grade explosives?"

"I'm sorry to disappoint you sir, but…"

"WHAT!?" Orson couldn't help but shout, and Turtle Princess recoiled into her shell a little. What kind of proper library carries books containing information like that? And what kind of deranged mind would check out a book like that?

"All of those books you asked for are being used for very important research, I'm sorry!" Turtle princess looked frightened.

Orson composed himself, and sat down in the chair. So the person who'd checked out all the books had also checked out books on making explosives. A sudden feeling of dread began to rise in his stomach. "I don't suppose you could tell me who checked out those books? I really need them for the research I'm doing."

Turtle Princess edged her way out of her shell and frowned again. "I'm sorry, but I can't reveal that information. It's top secret."

Orson frowned, it was vital that he learn who checked out those books. If only so that he could have some peace of mind. "Are you sure you can't tell anyone? Not even… _me?_" Orson looked up at her with big, shining eyes. He felt bad about this, but he'd feel worse if he left empty handed.

"Well…I…uh..I…can't…but…uh" Turtle princess was blushing just as uncontrollably as she was stammering. Orson could practically see the steam rising off her head, and her hands fidgeting together wildly. "I suppose if you really need it for your research…"

Orson leapt up and gave Turtle Princess a hug. "Thanks Turtle Princess! You're the best!"

As he let go, he could feel her face becoming even redder. "Well, you didn't hear this from me… but the person who has been checking out all the books is… Princess Bubblegum." Turtle Princess let out a defeated sigh, knowing she really shouldn't have cracked so easily. "So, is there anything else I can help you with?" She looked back at Orson, smiling.

Orson smiled and picked up the book he had been reading, "Yes actually, I'd like to check this book out. It's getting late and I still have much research to do." Moving over to the checkout desk, Orson made his own Ooo library card and proceeded to rent the book. He shoved it in his bag, waved goodbye to Turtle Princess, and then sprinted to the Treehouse.

Up above, the moon shone brightly as he dashed across the fields and plains. All the while, his brain kept making all sorts of weird connections between Bubblegum and her secrets. Most prevalent of the negative thoughts was, "Why on God's green Earth does she need or want a book on manufacturing high grade explosives?" Stopping by a river to catch his breath, Orson was greeted with an all too familiar voice.

"Enjoy your first day at the library poindexter?" It was the same feminine voice that had taunted him since day one. "I trust you probably looked in the bag right after you disappeared, but don't worry; your soul's probably high in sodium or some nasty junk."

The brunette haired vampire flew in front of Orson, causing him to fall backwards. "I-I'm not afraid of you, all you've done is mess with my head ever since I've gotten here!" The terror was still noticeable in his voice. "And if you knew I was going to look in the bag, why give it to me in the first place?"

Marceline just took a relaxing pose in the air and pretended to examine her fingernails. "Like I said, I don't like hanging around Bonnibel. Besides, it's not like you'd know what the stuff that stuff was right? You ARE new here after all." Marceline spoke down to him, like he lacked in common sense or the ability to do research. "Anyway, I've got a lot of things to do tonight so I really can't stay to toy around with you this time. I just wanted to give you a little something. Since you've been spending so much time around her, I thought you might like to know more about good ol' Bonnibel; like what she reads in her spare time." Marceline casually tossed Orson a worn looking, yellow paperback book. "After all, you have been spending most of your time with her." Marceline smiled at Orson as if she knew something secret and gave him a knowing wink, causing him to blush.

"We've just been working together. That's all." Orson caught the book and looked at its cover, frowning though when he realized it was too dark out to read it. Putting it in his duffle bag, he stood up from where he had been resting and glared at her. "Don't you have anything better to do than torment me anyways? No more chores to do for Princess Bubblegum or anything?"

"Nah, Bonnibel only asks me for help only when she REALLY needs it anyways." Marceline landed and looked at the moon before continuing, "Besides, I'm immortal. I've got plenty of time to do whatever I want. That's the way it's been for centuries now."

Orson looked at her with some curiosity and asked, "How long have you been around anyways? You don't look a day past eighteen."

"That's because vampires don't age dingus," Marceline laughed a little, "and you're not supposed to ask a lady her age, it's impolite."

Orson sighed, "Not very polite to call someone a dingus either…" Orson muttered under his breath. "Look, all you've done since I've gotten here is imply Princess Bubblegum is working on something terrible and scare the living day lights out of me. Is it really so hard to just leave me alone?"

Marceline looked back at him and smiled. "Yes," she said jokingly.

Orson's hand rose to meet his face, this girl was just absolutely impossible.

"Don't take it so hard weenie," Marceline laughed, "I like to prank everyone. If it really bothers you so much, then I'll stop scaring you. It was getting old anyways, there's more than one way to have fun after all."

Orson let out another sigh; at least she agreed to stop scaring him. "Could you also stop with the names? It's making me feel like I'm back in high school."

"Well, you haven't given me your name still," Marceline walked over and poked Orson in his chest, "despite the fact that I was kind enough to introduce myself first."

With a yet another sigh, Orson extended his hand "I'm Orson, and sorry I didn't introduce myself earlier while I was running away terrified."

"Nice to meet you Orson, buuuuuuuuut I'm still gonna call you a weenie." Marceline wrapped an arm around his neck and noogied Orson. "It's more fun that way."

Orson freed himself from her and began to walk away, "Fine, whatever! Do what you want, I'll just stop caring. Caring is why I have half the problems I do, and it's why I'm helping someone I barely know! So really, keep on pestering me if that's what you want; cause the cares I stopped giving are all raining from the sky!"

As Orson stormed away, Marceline's face twisted into a confused expression before flying after him. "Wait, did you say you were helping Finn? How could you possibly help?" Marceline questioned, following him as he refused to look at her.

"Yup, there's research he needs done; and that happens to be what us scientists are good at." Orson said angrily, storming towards the treehouse.

"Dude, why would you help him? You've known the guy for all of two days."

"He barely knew me, yet he offered me a place to stay and a bed to sleep in. Least I can do is to help him in what little ways I can."

"So you, Finn, and Flame Princess are all…" Marceline snickered, purposely misconstruing his words.

"No!" Orson whipped around, his face red enough to provide light through the darkness of night, "I mean he's letting me crash on his couch, jeez."

"Ok ok, just messing with you again. But I swear, this time I'll lay off." Marceline landed in front of him, extending a friendly hand. "I honestly thought you were like the rest of the humans from before the Great Mushroom War." She frowned and looked away slightly, "Greedy, self- serving, free-loaders… and pretty self-destructive…" she smiled and looked back at Orson, "But you're willing to help Finn despite only knowing him for, what, two days? That's pretty rad dude; so, no hard feelings?"

Orson looked at the extended hand for a minute, trying to decide whether or not this was another prank. Eventually, Orson took her hand and shook it, muttering "No hard feelings, I know where you're coming from with that."

Orson looked at the moon, it was now almost directly overhead and was probably indicating Midnight approaching. "Look, it's getting late and I really gotta go. I have some research that still needs doing and I still need my rest. I'm glad we could sort this all out and everything though, but I really must be off."

"That's cool, have a safe trip back and everything. I'll just head home and practice my Bass or something." Marceline waved goodbye as Orson rushed off in the direction of the Tree House, and looked up at the moon.

It was a good night to be out. The warm air, the chirping of crickets, the sound of the nearby river rushing by and the twinkle of the stars above all culminated in a relaxing scene across the gentle slopes of the grasslands. Marceline breathed in a deep relaxing breath and floated off in the opposite direction before she remembered something, causing her features to sink. "Oh Gob," she looked back, worried in the direction of the treehouse, "he still has the book."


	12. Tense moments at Midnight

_Author's Note: Well, my fanfic has hit 2.2k views 0.0 I'm truly astounded by the number of viewers I've had, and would like to thank everyone who's contributed to the story so far. Also, I'd like to give finnandjake0 special mention, as he's the first favorite/follower of the new year! :D _

_So, I'd like to apologize for the delay in my updating. School's back up, and exams are next week, so I've had to devote a fair amount of time to that. I also got the Adventure Time video game, which I've been playing a lot! (an amazing game, it's so much fun!) I'll try to keep up with my usual once-a-week format, but I can't make any promises.  
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_In response to Feet: We'll see those characters again soon enough, they have their places in the story and what not.  
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_In response to Some Donkus: Hope you enjoy school man, and that was a friggin' fantastic episode! Even if the ending was kinda bad :P  
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_In response to everyone who thought Orson was being mean to turtle princess: I apologize if I made anyone uncomfortable or put any negative feelings towards Orson. I needed a way for him to get the information, and I'll admit that I've kinda disliked TP ever since Gotcha, where not only did she want LSP to do the same thing to Finn, but wanted to PUBLISH IT IN A FRIGGIN BOOK FOR ANYONE TO READ. Anyways, that was kinda mean for Orson, I'll try to prevent such things from occuring in the future.  
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_This chapter's mostly a fluff chapter, because I needed some way to move Orson between locations and wanted to write more Righteous Flame shipping XD. Hope you guys enjoy it all the same though  
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_Adventure time, as always, is property of Frederator studios, and it's 2:41 AM here. Hope you guys enjoy this XD  
_

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Orson, upon returning to the tree house, entered up the main ladder as quietly as he possibly could; taking great care so as not to wake anyone that may have been asleep. Upon reaching the top of the ladder, however, Orson was surprised to see Flame Princess sitting on the couch playing with BMO. Upon placing his bag down, Flame Princess's head snapped to the ladder with a mixture of excitement and worry. That is, until she noticed it was Orson and not Finn.

"Oh… hey Orson," Flame Princess sounded disappointed, "did you happen to see Finn at the Candy Kingdom today? Princess Bubblegum called him and Jake asking them to take care of a water ogre that stumbled into a mine somewhere and he hasn't been back since then."

Orson's face grew concerned, but the guy looked like the kind of person able to handle themselves in a fight. "Sorry, but I didn't see him there. Maybe he stopped by when I went to the library though, how long has he been gone?"

Flame Princess looked up at the clock, which currently had both hands pointing towards twelve. "About five hours." Flame Princess frowned and looked at Bmo, who had a digital frown as well. "What if something happened to him? Like, the ogre snuck up on him or something? Or he could've gotten lost in the mines, or the mines could've collapsed, or… something even worse could've happened!"

"If Finn is dead," Bmo took a fighting stance and three horizontal lines forming a face appeared on his screen, "then I will avenge him."

"That won't be necessary Bmo," a bag flew up the ladder and landed next to Orson's with a loud clatter of stones, "I'm right here." Next, Finn came crawling up the ladder covered in black dust and looking absolutely exhausted. His blue shirt marked with black splotches, his legs covered in bruises and small cuts, and strands of blond hair poking out from under the bear hat. From the ground, Finn forced himself up onto his legs, using a support beam to steady himself.

"Finn!" Flame Princess ran to him, about to hug him when Finn extended his hand with a weary smile.

"Not a good idea right now dear. Give me a minute though, and a hug would be nice." Finn laughed a little as he picked up the brown sack and placed it on the couch. "Lemme just get cleaned up a little, I'll be right back."

"Where were you though?" Flame Princess definitely appeared miffed, certainly understandable considering her situation.

"I'll explain everything in a minute, I swear." Finn hurried up the ladder despite his apparent weariness and Flame Princess took her seat on the sofa, glaring at the table as the sound of water running came from above them. A few minutes later, Finn came back down cleaned and in new clothes. He even replaced the hat with a fresh one, and he was still smiling the same goofy smile.

He sat down next to Flame Princess and tried to give her a hug, but she stuck her arm out this time. "Explain yourself… Now." She was giving Finn a rather nasty glare, and had her arms crossed across her chest in a sign of annoyance.

Finn was still smiling a big goofy grin, "Okay, okay. I owe you an explanation. You see, me and Jake went to deal with the water ogre in the mine. Turns out the stupid donk was just confused about where he was supposed to be and wandered into the mine. After we sent it on its way, Jake accidentally kicked a stalactite or something and a wall separated us." Finn put his feet up on the coffee table, smiling still despite the fact that FP's face was now a mix of anger and concern.

"After the wall separated us, I got lost for a couple of hours in a maze made entirely of smooth coal walls. I don't think the miners could've made it, and the walls had directions written in runes at some points, so discovering that was pretty math. But anyways, I wandered through the maze for an hour or two until I slipped down a smooth coal chute that led me to a room FULL of these statuettes." Finn grabbed the brown sack and started pulling out an assortment of creatures carved from coal. A horse, standing regal on a rectangular stand it reared on its hind legs in a symbol of freedom. A tiger, or some form of similar big jungle cat, was crouching on its stand. A bull on its stand was displayed bucking it's horns, front legs raised slightly off the stand. Finn continued to pull statuettes of a similar theme out until only a few lumps remained in the bag.

Flame Princess's jaw dropped at the staggering collection of coal animal statuettes arranged on the table in front of her. "They sorta reminded me of you, so I took'em with me." Flame Princess looked up at Finn and stared at him in amazement, he was smiling at her still. "I figured you'd like them."

Sitting upright, Finn continued his story. "After I found these awesome statues, I followed a long black corridor until I reached a narrow passage I had to crawl through. Which is how I got these bad boys!" Finn lifted his legs and pointed with both hands at the cuts and bruises along his legs. "At the end, I came to a room full of bowls full of these things." Finn pulled out three small pouches from the large bag and put them down on the table. "Smooth, polished stones from around the cavern were in these large clay bowls. So, I thought you might like these…" Finn blushed a little and opened one of the pouchs, revealing it to be full of small gleaming pearls of pure coal. Each one was shaped perfectly into a tiny sphere about two inches in diameter.

Nobody in the room could believe what they were seeing. For one thing, this was a massive amount of coal in a mountain that was being mined for it. For another, the craftsmanship on both the spheres and the statuettes was incredible and both were fine examples of master craftsmanship. Whoever made this anthracite temple Finn described, must've had a fierce devotion to the material or too much time and coal.

Flame Princess was stunned, "you got lost in a mountain temple, and you collected souvenirs for me?" Her flames were noticeably larger, and a good amount of blush covered her face.

"Well… Yeah. You were all I could think about in there." Finn blushed and looked away, "I was afraid you'd be worried about me, so these are kinda my way of apologizing."

"Finn," Flame Princess wrapped her arms around Finn and laid her head on his shoulder, "you don't have to do stuff like this. I'm happy just knowing you're safe." Flame Princess looked up at Finn with a playful smile, "you could've at least called on your phone."

"Heh. Yeah, I'm sorry I didn't call when I got out or when I reported to the Candy Kingdom. I was just so excited to be out." Finn laughed a little and placed his arms around Flame Princess. "It'll be the first thing I do next time." Finn joked, the both of them laughing a little.

Orson saw there was still a lump inside the bag, and curiosity prompted him to interrupt the moment. "What's that last thing in the bag there?" he asked, indicating the rather large lump.

Finn blushed even harder when he realized he'd forgotten about the last item in his sack. "Oh yeah. So after the room with the bowls was an intricate water puzzle, which led me eventually into this giant cavern made of coal and granite, and wedged between two pillars in the middle of the room was this!" Finn reached into the bag and pulled out a gigantic spherical diamond about the same size as a softball.

The diamond was flawless, reflecting the light of the room around almost like a mirror. Everybody in the room stared in stunned silence, except for Finn who was smiling at everybody's reactions.

"I pulled this thing out and the entire place started crumbling, I had to follow a trail of magical glowing mushrooms through a slowly closing tunnel to get out. It was totally rad!" Finn looked excited as he recalled his escape, but Flame Princess looked pretty mad at him.

"Finn! Why would you take something like this? You could've been KILLED for glob's sake! That was stupid, reckless, and dangerous!" Flame Princess gave Finn a piercing glare, angry at Finn for endangering himself for no discernible reason.

Finn shrank back a little and blushed, his smile turning into a frown. "Well, when I saw it, it kinda reminded me of your engagement ring and what happened to it. I started feeling bad, and then I thought 'this should definitely make up for that!'." Finn placed his arms around Flame Princess once more, lack of burns showing that Flame Princess had probably meditated while waiting for Finn to return. "I didn't mean to make you worry about me. Once again, I'm sorry I made you worry."

Flame Princess's face was expressionless, with only a slight amount of blush tinting her face giving any clue as to what was going on in her head. After a few seconds of silence, Flame Princess stood up; pushing Finn away while her flames increased in size. "FINN THE HUMAN, YOU ARE THE BIGGEST IDIOT I HAVE EVER MET!" With that, Flame Princess stormed up the ladder scowling, blushing and muttering something angrily.

Finn looked over at Orson nervously, "Sorry you had to see that. I should probably make sure she's alright." Finn dashed off after Flame Princess up the ladder.

Orson sat for a while longer, stunned by everything that had just transpired. The items Finn had procured all laid out on the table; it was like someone had taken some of Keller's Dungeons and Dragons campaign rewards and turned them into actual objects. Picking up one of the coal statuettes, he turned it over and over again in his hands admiring the master craftsmanship that must have gone into creating such a thing.

Putting the statuette down, Orson moved over to the kitchen table and dragged out the book of Ooo royalty, studying for a few minutes before bedtime. Reading through each kingdom, Orson jotted down notes on rules and loopholes that could possibly help in Finn and FP's predicament. Although, with the strange variety kingdoms and domains, there seemed to be almost nothing that could prevent Finn from just planting a flag in his tree and shouting "I'm a prince because I damn well said so." Orson finished his research with a yawn; halfway through the book was a list of all the princesses. There wasn't much he could do with that other than make sure Finn had checked with every princess about favors.

Moving over to the couch, Orson lied down with his blanket across him, when he heard two voices come through the floorboards above.

"I'm sorry about calling you an idiot honey…" Came the voice of Flame Princess from above, "I was just so angry about how reckless you were, I just kinda…"

"It's cool FP," came Finn's voice from roughly the same location, the holes in the ceiling above ruining whatever little soundproofing aspect the wooden planks had, "you've been under a lot of pressure lately, and I probably didn't help with the stunt I pulled. Besides," Finn laughed a little, "I'm kinda a doofus, so you were just being honest."

"Except you're not a doofus," Flame Princess sighed, "you're my hero."

"And you're my candle in the night," Replied Finn, causing Flame Princess to giggle, "I'll always find my way back to you."

There were a few moments of silence, before Flame Princess's voice reappeared through the floorboards. "I love you Finn."

"I love you too FP. It's getting late, so we should probably get some rest. Sleep tight sweetheart."

"You too Finny Bear."

Orson had to slap both hands over his mouth to silence his intense urge to laugh at the nickname Flame Princess had used on Finn. It was bad enough he was unintentionally eavesdropping, he didn't need to add insult to injury by laughing.

As Orson lay motionless on the couch, waiting to fall into sleep, a thought occurred to him. He still hadn't looked at the book Marceline had given him. Pulling it out from the dufflebag at the head of his makeshift bed, he was sure the book was probably nothing. A plain yellow paperback with no title on the spine or cover, it was probably some trashy romance novel that the vampire queen had picked out to mess with him. Opening the book however, caused Orson's jaw to practically drop to the floor.

Right on the yellowed pages before him was the books title, "Pyrotechnics: The art of creating and controlling large scale explosives". Flipping through was chapter upon chapter of formulas and equations, each one helpfully labeled and explained in the paragraphs below. Finally hitting the back, Orson saw the sleeve for a library card, and the stamped card itself resting there. With the pink haired princess's initials printed clear as day.

Orson closed the book, and sat staring at the ceiling for a moment in silence. A few moments later however, he bolted upright and stormed out the treehouse towards the Candy Kingdom in the pitch black of night. He wasn't sure what was going on yet, but he sure as all hell was going to get an explanation. He didn't even care that It was past dark in a land that clearly had no sympathy for him, he was going to confront the princess immediately.


End file.
